The dream I just woke up from...

I was hiking across South America with my friends Eric and Greg when we decided that we needed a monkey to keep us company. Luckily, there was someone willing to rent us one at the very next village. He pulled it out of a cage, put a yellow leash on it, and told us not to worry about bringing it back. We were delighted. We called it Steve.

Now I should probably point out that while my dreaming consciousness told me that we were in South America–Uruguay, to be exact–the surrounding terrain and flora resembled the region of western Washington state around Snoqualamie Falls. For some odd reason, whenever I dream, I am actually in Washington state, no matter where I think I am. That is probably one for the psychologists to puzzle over.

Anyway, we resumed our walk with our monkey in tow. At first, it was fun because the monkey loved us. It hopped around us, it climbed up on our backs, and it generally behaved in an entertaining monkey manner. But then we set up camp at a clearing, started up a fire, and began to sing folk songs. Now, in real life, Greg, Eric, and I would never ever sing folk songs. And we shouldn’t, because they really pissed our monkey off. It made a bunch of “hoo-hoo-ha-ha-ha!” noises and waved its arms around for awhile, before stalking off into the jungle that was really just a deciduous forest.

“Wonder what’s wrong with Steve?” Eric asked as we settled into our sleeping bags.

“He must not like Gordon Lightfoot,” Greg said.

“What a silly monkey,” I remarked and then we all drifted off to sleep under the Uruguayan/Washingtonian sky.

The next morning our monkey was irascible. He sulked along at the end of his leash the entire morning. Eventually, his pouting got to us and we untethered him, thinking that perhaps he would be happier if he could frolic some. Instead he just ran into the undergrowth and chucked pinecones at us. He didn’t run away or anything, he just kind of lurked along with us, throwing things at us whenever it struck his fancy.

“Hoo-haa-ha-ha!” Steve taunted us.

“Steve’s an asshole,” Eric said.

“I hate Steve,” Greg agreed.

“We should never have got a monkey,” I said, just before a small rock clipped me in the temple. That’s when I woke up.

The moral of my dream is clear. If you’re in Uruguay, do not sing folk songs in the presence of a rented monkey. They hate them.