Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Simian Lives (Even Imaginary) Matter

Here's a true story from the Baudelaire Files:

A couple of weeks ago, Precocious Daughter and I were driving home from her weekly clarinet lesson.

Totally channeling the Goodman vibe, she is.

She was driving, because ever since she got her learner's permit, I basically only drive to work and home again. Everywhere else - Target, music lessons, her dad's place, band practice - she drives.

She is actually a pretty damn good driver. I'm proud of her.

And in fact, except for her two iron-clad rules - 1) the driver picks the radio station and 2) when she's not the driver she picks the radio station - I like being a passenger. It's a novelty I haven't enjoyed since becoming a single mom.

Let's pretend any of these women are me, OK?
Back to the point, though.

We were driving on a stretch of road between suburbs where the speed limit is 50 mph. And naturally, PDaughter was taking tf care of that rather high limit as she drove us home.

And so, while driving at a pretty good clip for a city street, we both saw something in the median.

First, we saw a big-ass crow.

I mean, this thing was the size of a KFC five-piece meal all by itself.

Seriously, effing wings and thighs and biscuits and all that shit.

Second, we saw that said Mr. Crow was presiding over the body of some roadkill. As your standard suburban crow will do.

Spoiler alert: Doesn't give a sh*t whether you call it a crow, blackbird,
or grackle. Will crap on your car and stare you the f*ck down
from the median.

Here's the thing: As we whiz by, PDaughter exclaims, "Was that a monkey?"

As in, was the roadkill we just saw next to the amazingly freaking large crow...an actual monkey?

DO NOT EVEN LOOK IF YOU'RE SENSITIVE YOU GUYS SERIOUSLY



Oh, Jeebus. I'm sorry for that.

Here's the thing. I saw something in the median that Sunday morning.

I thought it was a large cat...?

Possibly a Siamese, because it was, like, tawny and had a long tail...?

But...A monkey?

What the actual f*ck would an actual dead monkey have been doing in the median of a suburban thoroughfare on a Sunday morning?

Besides something super-interesting but also
inherently very sad?
You can imagine our curiosity.

Unfortunately, the moment passed quickly.

We did not make a U-turn to confirm our suspicions, also unfortunately.

So what did we see that Sunday morning?

A run-of-the-mill carcass of a squirrel or cat that didn't make it across the road like the fabled chicken?

Or an actual long-tailed, tan-bodied, inexplicable monkey who somehow met its unlikely end along a wide suburban road in Texas, to be attended in death by a glossy black-feathered bird?

I'd like to say I have the answer. But I don't.

As far as PDaughter and I are concerned, we saw a monkey in the median along Belt Line Road between Coppell and Carrollton, Texas.

And we mourn that little guy.

The point is, every little life matters. Try to remember that as you whiz by on the roadway.

Every life.

Every one.



5 comments:

  1. I would have made thw U turn. Well, not when I was 15, but now. Once there was a huge dildo lying in the middle of the driveway to the office building I was working in at the time. About four of us in our office saw it, and turned around to confirm what we had seen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Was the dildo killed or just grievously injured? Hard to sleep without knowing a little bit more.

      Delete
  2. When I was six or seven I found a dead boa constrictor in a drainage ditch near my home.
    This was in Nashville, Tennessee. To this day I wonder what killed it.
    Clearly this was a pet that either got loose or, more likely, was intentionally released by someone who found caring for it to be too much of a burden. The same thing has happened further south where boas and other non-native species are now ravaging the Everglades.
    I'm sorry to say it might really have been a monkey.
    I hope not, but some people don't think about how what seems like a small thing can have an enormous impact.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That crow might have had no idea the rarity of the meal it was having. I hope it wasn't a monkey, though.

    I once had a client whose kid was attacked by a monkey here in Houston. In their driveway. The client's driveway, not the monkey's.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was the monkey's driveway, misappropriated by your client. That's why he was your client, right? Defending his acquisition in court? 'fess up!

      Delete

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