Too Much Monkey Business
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
During the holiday season it is better to swing from the vines than sit in a tree.
This is why I was amped up over a monkey serving tray I found last week in an antique store in Lincoln, Ill. during a detour on a road trip to St. Louis.
I thought of two things: how the green and brown motif would make a great accessory for my home tiki bar (see PHOTO gallery).
I also thought of my friend Bob and a New Year’s Day we spent at Sunset Junque on the Blue Star Highway near South Haven, Mich. That’s when I scored a four-foot long bamboo monkey with a baby monkey in tow. Bob and his companion Cleo loved it.
I may have loved the monkey serving tray even more.
Then my girl friend Adriana saw it.
You would have thought I brought home a live monkey with a tray of pineapple cheese dip. She told me the monkey looked like it was on crack.
That’s not in the holiday spirit.
So the monkey serving tray spent less than a week in my house, even though Adriana and I don’t live together. I knew Bob would appreciate it. His eye for weird collectibles is as crooked as mine.
When I was married in the mid-1980s I collected wooden frogs with instruments that I found in antique stores during fall foilage trips to Galena. I assembled a band of five erect frogs, playing the drums, fife stand-up bass, etc. My wife hated them. I was vindicated when a major newspaper conducted a survey of the world’s worst antiques. My marching frogs finished in the top three.
The monkey serving tray has that potential.
I’m just fascinated by thinking about whomever thinks up these things. Really, who would buy them except for me? Bob smiled a lot when he opened his present, but he seemed bewildered as to what to do with it. Since the monkey serving tray was only in my possesion for a short amount of time, I never noticed the holes in the back that suggested it was a piece of fine art meant to be hung on a wall.
But I told Bob I want to see my monkey serving tray in play at his next party: filled with bananas.
Happy and healthy holidays to all, no matter your point of view.
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