My mom thinks I like monkeys. I don’t know why. It seems that every opportunity she gets to give me a gift I end up getting some new monkey, ape, gorilla or orangutan merchandise. By now I’ve gotten so many stuffed monkeys, monkey t-shirts, monkey notepads, monkey picture frames, barrels of monkeys, inflatable monkeys and monkey-shaped foodstuffs that I’m starting to go bananas. What’s worse is that now other people are starting to get in on this monkey business as well.

One day I got a package in the mail from my sister. I opened the box and found a very curious gift indeed—a cuckoo clock. But instead of a cuckoo that came out of the clock every hour, it was a goony-looking monkey holding a banana. I’d been monkeyed again. “God damn you!” I shouted. “God damn you all to hell!”

I really did need a clock in the kitchen, so I plunked in some batteries, put the clock on the wall and hoped it didn’t make too much of a racket. When the next hour came around, though, something terrible happened. The doors wouldn’t open, so the monkey smacked his head on them, screeched a muffled protest from within and then, I imagine, passed out on the floor of his monkey house. I became more and more concerned as the same scene played out hour after hour: Smack! Ook, ook, ook! Ack! Ack! Thunk.

Finally I’d had enough monkeying around. I opened up the clock with my monkey-wrench, monkeyed around with the levers and springs and found the missing link that was keeping it from opening properly. When I got the clock back together and the next hour rolled around, the monkey seemed quite enthusiastic that the doors opened as planned. Now I’ve got a fully functional monkey in my kitchen, but I still don’t know why.

Pros: At least as fun as a barrel of monkeys.

Cons: I’m all out of monkey puns.

Dave Kleinschmidt is the Artvoice web monkey, and can be reached at webmaster@artvoice.com, or 810 Main St, Buffalo, NY 14202.