A violet toddler? What!!?
How funny.
It was in the wee hours is my excuse.
And, yet, you still want a monkey. 
Now that is the ending of a very strange (and sad) short story.
From reading Beck’s stories over the years, I’ve developed an image of Arkansas as a different dimension. Like crossing the border into the state is like walking through the back of the wardrobe into Narnia.
Narni-y’all.
Hee hee.
It wasn’t a very short story for Boscoe. The petshop guy told me he was about 80 yrs old.
Maybe he wanted to end the years of being caged and angry, and lonely.
I call it the great black hole, and I’ve fell in like so many Alice’s in wonderland.
Be very grateful for the missed opportunity to adopt a banana-eating critter. No matter what yo secretly wish for, you DO NOT want a monkey.
People who make pets out of wild animals often get monkey pox. Oh, it’s a real disease. It makes smallpox look like fun.
Your escaped banana-eater was probably a possum. And Clarence would have to be consulted before you can bring one of those things home.
RHIP, yanno.
~VOW
Apparently, there are also Leopons - a cross between a lion and a leopard.
What a topsy turvy world we live in!
I hope Bigfoot don’t cross…umm…nm
True story. When we were kids, my friend decided he wanted one of those - from that exact ad.
His dad said he would build a cage if Mark could raise the scratch. He went door to door selling something (vegetables from his dad’s garden if I remember correctly) until he reached his goal.
Dad built a cage. The money was sent off. The day came when the monkey arrived. His dad put him in the cage and all the neighborhood gathered around and marveled.
Shortly my friend got a bowl of fruit and decided to feed him. He cautiously cracked open the door and like a brown blur the monkey was gone. Mark cried unconsolably.
Monkey lived in a very tall tree across the alley for a while. One day he wasn’t there anymore.
The monkey ran for Congress, won in a landslide election, and has been re-elected ever since.
The monkey has been smart enough not to send pictures of his genitalia via text messages, nor does he make jokey anime videos and post them to Instagram. He doesn’t sexually harass anyone, won’t take junket trips, and refuses to use campaign funds as his personal spending money.
He is, however, an expert at flinging poo.
Which explains his perpetual re-election.
~VOW
I had trouble with SEA-monkeys.
Jeez!