My Pet Monkey

I’ve mentioned this before in a tag but when I was a kid; I had a pet monkey, named Charlie. I thought Charlie deserved some retro love.

My dad brought him home when I would around five or six years old. Picture this: we lived in Brooklyn, NY and I had a pet squirrel monkey. My friends thought this was very cool. Charlie lived in a very large bird cage. We would let him out of the cage every day for exercise. One of his favorite things to do was to sleep curled up to our cat. The cat didn’t mind. They got along great.

My grandma let Charlie out one day, but forgot to check the upstairs window. You guessed it – he jumped out the window to the tree (that grew in Brooklyn) in front of our house. I soon arrived from school to find my grandma very frantic pointing at the tree. I was about ten or eleven and I started to cry out for Charlie to come down from the tree. Could you imagine this scene? I started to draw a crowd. People pulled over and parked their cars to see if they could help. They felt sorry for the little girl whose monkey was up a tree. They all called his name. Finally Charlie came down and climbed down my arm, sat on my shoulder – and the crowd cheered.

The city was doing road work in the streets. If you ever lived in NY, you would know that this stirs up the rats and mice. During this time, I heard mice in the walls and we had to set traps all over the house. I can’t begin to tell you how much this grossed me out. One morning I open my eyes and felt something fury next to my feet. Suddenly a lump formed in my throat. I started to breathe heavy. I thought a rat was under the covers in my bed. I was paralyzed with fear. I took a deep breath, counted to three, and then quickly removed the covers. I jumped out of bed to only realize it was Charlie. He had gotten out of his cage during the night and got cozy with my feet.

I have one more Charlie story. My dad was not a drinker. As a matter of fact, I rarely saw him drink. Some relatives from out of town came over for dinner. They bought over lots of wine. My dad didn’t want to be rude and let’s just say . . . he wasn’t feeling any pain. He thought that he should share a little of his wine with Charlie. He placed a few drops in his water dish. It seemed that Charlie liked wine. He liked it too much. He got a little tipsy and swung upside down from his tail, and had trouble walking around. He slept it off. Let’s just say that dad got an ear full from mom. He learned his lesson.

I loved Charlie. I miss him. He died when I was around fifteen. I cried for months. He was a part of our family.

Did you have a favorite pet?

© Nadine Z. 2008

Please note monkey pictured is not Charlie. If I find his pictures, I will update.