Part of a Balanced Breakfast

I was feeling strange. My morning banana for breakfast every day was transforming my insides to a semi-hard yellow goop and my skin was jaundiced with patches of brown. My spine had curved convexly stretching my head and neck out over my feet which kept trying to take root. Every step I took I was dragging a pulpy tangle of wood tendrils. When I stopped they immediately dug into the floor. I had to keep moving like a shark to keep myself from being a planted banana tree, but even that wasn’t the worst thing.

The monkeys. They were the worst. Macaques, howlers, marmosets, spider monkeys, capuchins, tamarins, colobus monkeys, mandrills; climbing on me all day long. They just appeared out of nowhere and sat on my arms eating nits from each other’s backs. The macaques stayed in a tight group on my feet while the colobus sat on my neck shitting on everything below them. At night they all got drunk on wine they made from their feces and then threw the leftover poo at each other in a screeching, wailing, foul primate bacchanal.

Then, just when I thought I was at my low point, my life got worse. The Monkees showed up. That’s right, look at the spelling. I’m talking about those Monkees.

It was a quiet day at the office. I was sitting at my desk pretending to work, wool gathering about me, Kate Upton, a desert island, a can of Ready Whip and a winning lottery ticket when I felt a tug on my right leg. I looked down to see a white-faced tamarin Peter Tork climbing up my pant leg. When I confronted him he started beating his chest and humming “Daydream Believer”. While still trying to shut him up red-nosed mandrill Mickey Dolenz pounced on my back, singing:

“Take the last train to Clarksville

And I’ll meet you at the station”

“Shut up,” I yelled, my hands clawing at his bushy hair. I stood up and tried to shake them off. That’s when I heard the deep, rough cough. I looked up to see an enraged lowland Mike Nesmith charging me, his arms raised high over his head. I managed to fling Tork off my leg and into Nesmith. The two rolled across the floor, a tangle of arms and legs, barking and biting at each other. Dolenz jumped up and down on my head shaking loose a few small, unripened bananas that had grown from my armpits. The singer leapt to the ground for the fruit giving me the chance to kick him in the rear. Screaming he fell into Tork and Nesmith forming a ball o’Monkees that I rolled down the hallway and out the front door.

I sat back down at my desk thinking I would finally get some peace and quiet but then the sons-of-bitches set up their equipment and gave an impromptu concert in the parking lot. I’ll never get that damn theme song out of my head.

“Here we come . . .”