Last night, my wife and I had a bite to eat at a local corner pub. We chose the pub because of its quiet atmosphere so I could show my wife the details of the business transaction from earlier in the day.
Our server for the evening, Kim, gave us the kind of attention that a patron wants, filling our drinks as needed without being overly friendly. I have worked in the restaurant industry and had friends who thought every customer was a friend for life. Some customers eat that attitude up while some are offended. The best servers read their customers and treat each one as slightly different, stepping in or staying out of personal spaces when situations demand it. Kim's a keeper. I'll gladly let her serve me food any day.
The other day, a Toyota Matrix with Alabama license plate 47V554N parked in front of our house. I watched the car sit there for a while and then decided to have a little fun, walking onto the front porch in my relax-at-home clothes (a sweater, T-shirt and casual pants stamped with Guinness beer label designs) and snapping a few photos of the car and its occupant. I wonder if the driver was doing the same thing, taking photos of my yard and then of me. Wouldn't it be funny if we both posted photos of each other on the Internet and didn't know it? Well, I've posted a photo of the car, letting the driver have obscurity for now. If I see other cars stopping in front of my house, next time I'll post my telephoto webcam videos of them and let you see their facial reactions to my stepping out on the porch and waving hello. Get yourself a set of hidden remote control high-resolution webcams with telephoto lenses and point them in different directions out into the world. Life is short. Have fun. Make YouTube videos and post them for Internet viewers.
Today I feel trapped, like a monkey in a zoo cage. People are trying to get my attention, waving items like food and shiny coins at me in hopes I'll be interested, even though I've already eaten my banana and oats for breakfast. Unless they're offering me freedom, there's nothing they have that interests me. I've lost any hope of getting out of this cage called Earth. Evolution, happenchance, predestination, whatever. I'm here on this planet at this time with nowhere or no time to go other than where and when I am right now. I missed the opportunity to reproduce myself. Now I'm just a hanger-on, looking through the bars of this cage with nothing to do but watch human beings pass by while I eat, poop and sleep in front of them for their entertainment. They keep measuring my vital statistics and giving me intelligence tests, marveling at the results. Have they got nothing better to do? I'm just an average primate with limited comprehension and social adaptation skills.
I don't seek fame or fortune. I don't ask for instant recognition. I don't know what I want. I can die in a car wreck and never be any wiser than if I lived another 500 years. I am wise and a wise ass. I feel like those guys I played Dungeons & Dragons with back in 1980 or 1981, looking at a blank piece of paper, discovering and uncovering pathways and trails that we have to draw as we go along, never knowing what's around the corner, quickly bored with the game. Experience teaches me nothing and knowledge is useless because every new experience is completely different than the last one.
People keep wanting my attention, thinking I'm worth something to them for some reason. But I am nobody special. I have no skills. I have no inherent value. I am a monkey afraid of being followed and trapped in a cage, surrounded by curious onlookers. My attention span is short. I go to sleep every night expecting to wake up to something new. I wake up in the same cage every morning and start the routine over again, only partially aware that I did the same thing the day before. I'd beg somebody to do me in if I was aware of the possibility but I don't understand the concept of unbeing. My natural inclination is curiosity while my natural instinct is to eat whatever's in front of me, sanitation being another unknown concept to me. Feed me and I'll be happy. I'll even sleep in my own excrement.
I look at every human being and beg with my eyes for escape but no one has an escape plan worth taking. They have their own wishes to fulfill, thinking that I can help them escape themselves. I'd say we're trapped in a hell of insanity if I knew what hell and insanity mean. I'd say I can't take it anymore but my forgetfulness means I can take the same thing over and over again with no clear notion why.
I'm not sure but I think I'm tired of living. I'm tired of being followed around. I don't expect anything of you anymore so why do you expect anything of me? If it's just because of the look in my eyes, then forget about it. I can't get rid of the habit of looking at others with eternal, unjudging hope. It's permanently built into my facial muscles. That's why I'm hiding in my cage because I know what my looks do to people. They think they mean something to me because my habit of hoping to find something in them shows on my face and body. It's been with me since I was in a crib.
I can be in a bad, sour, hateful mood but people still smile at me and think happy thoughts because of my mask of smiling eyes and open body gestures. My looks have given me many free passes through life but I'm tired of the venues that the free passes take me to - always something that benefits other people with me by their side. When do I get what I want, to walk out of this cage and go to a deserted island or private tract of land where no humans are looking at or to me?
My face is flush. My ears feel hot. My blood pressure is probably higher than normal. I cannot and never will get what I want. I know why the elephants in the next enclosure over keep dying young and I'll probably join them - we've lost our sense of self because humans think that domestication is a cure-all. I'm tired of letting others get what they want through me. Guess I'll go back to finding new cracks, crevices and bugs on the walls of my cage to keep me occupied because the parade of humans walking past these bars have become a blur.
Don't be surprised if you walk past my cage and it looks empty. I'm sitting in a dark corner finding infinity in a chip of paint - if I can't escape, at least I can pretend to be somewhere or somebody else in my little monkey thoughts. It's about all I've got left these days now that they don't let me have sex with female monkeys anymore.
The problem with being in a domesticated cage is that there are no predators to put us old monkeys out of our misery like in the real world. That's the last time I wander into a human camp looking for food! It won't happen again, I can tell you. Or that's what I'd say if I could talk and think like you overdomesticated primates. Ooo-ooo-ooo. Ah-ah-ah. There, I feel better already. I'm back to being a monkey again.
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