Monkeys

I am a smoker. Not a social smoker, not an 'only after sex' smoker, not a drinking smoker. I smoke. A lot. And as a result I am very protective of my cigarettes. Especially since here in Sudan you can't just pop down to the corner store and buy a box. You have to think in advance. 'How many boxes am I likely to need until the next time I pass a shop?' Its a constant stress.

Yesterday, I bought two boxes before I went home. Just in case the first box didnt last, or my host smoked some and I didnt have enough or whatever. I bought two. I went home to my temporary accomodation and opened a bottle of wine and settled in for the evening. At the 'house' we currently have a Patis Monkey. She is a very sweet little thing. She is about the size of a small cat, and spends much of her time jumping from table to chair to shoulder to chair to table in an endless cycle of excess energy. She is only about 3 months old so I suppose she is a bit like a two year old in monkey form. She is a rescue. When I was still working at the bar, one of our staff told us that he knew of a monkey being kept illegally, so we rescued it, then realised that along with the two mongoose, the 5 kittens, three cats, one bird, and a very sick chimpanzee we already had, there was just no way we had the time or the space to look after it. So we palmed her off on the Host. He loves her, so it worked out well.

However, as I was sitting outside reading my book and quietly sipping my wine, I suddenly decided that giving the monkey to the Host was a bad idea. This is because as I peered over the top of my book I was confronted by the sight of darling little baby monkey with a mouthful of cigarettes. Not from the open box. Oh no! She had ripped the closed and sealed box to pieces and was sitting there quietly and systematically pulling each cigarette from the box and ripping it apart. As I leapt up to save the last of the cigarettes from the box from being eaten, the monkey got such a fright that she jumped backwards, landed on the OPEN box of cigarettes and let out a stream of pure putrid monkey urine, straight onto the box.

I had one cigarette left. ONE!!! I hate monkeys.