For the purpose of this quote, I'm taking it for granted that we all evolved from monkeys and their kin. However, I'm starting to question how different we really are from our very distant ancestors. Two amusing anecdotes recently came to my attention that have caused me to reconsider our place on the evolutionary chain. If we thought we were more advanced than monkeys based merely on our ability to hold down menial jobs, we'd better think again.
The first tale was related to me by my parents after their return from a Kenyan safari. Monkeys were avid and constant participants in this venture. When they weren't busy contemplating jumping hapless tourists for their food, they would be busy investigating tents. That's right; these monkeys have discovered how to unzip things. That's evolution for you. These monkeys are clearly the non-fictional equivalent of raptors, except they see your crepes as food rather than you. The safari guides seemed very unconcerned about all of this, claiming that nothing of value was ever left in the tents. This didn't stop a monkey from making a cursory search, and emerging triumphant with a crumpled paper in hand, clutched like some sort of prize. This was taken back to the monkey camp, where it was added to a pile of similar trash. All this leads me to assume that monkeys would be amazing garbage collectors (and we all know how important garbage collection can be). Best of all, we'd only need to pay them with the trash itself. Given their instincts, it's a real shame they were not allowed near the final edits of Kazaam.
In other monkey business, I recently read an article about a difficulty faced by the Indian subway system. Apparently a monkey managed to board the subway and scowled at the passengers for several stops before reaching his station and disembarking. In other words, he rode the system much like many disgruntled human passengers. In order to prevent this from occuring, the subway system decided to step up security on monkey passengers. To accomplish this, they employed several specially trained monkeys to keep their kindred off the trains. I understand their salary is paid in bananas. And we though outsourcing to other humans was bad! At least that's keeping things within our species.
So monkeys have got petty theft, sanitary engineering and security all covered. They can also presumably serve as code monkeys. It looks like the computer might not be the only threat to our jobs. Now that's some crazy monkeying around.
Return to Jaridis Blade's Gallery of Quotes