Toastin' and Lookin' at Monkeys

     Superbowl Sunday isn't really my cup of tea. I try to watch the game, but my eyes just stare without registering any of the activity on the screen, and my little brain thinks about something--anything--else. I have this one uncle who gets so riled up during the superbowl, he leaps about in the air, beating on his chest like a wild baboon, yelling and stomping and raising a ruckus. His behavior is actually not that out of the ordinary for middle-aged men; my dad's a passionate clapper when it comes to sports. But my uncle is strange because he always chooses the team that no one else in the family is rooting for. Even if the Patriots are playing, he still roots for the opposing team (and that is plain unheard of around here). And so when everyone else is celebrating, caught up in the jubilation of their team's success, my good old uncle is swearing and tugging at his mustache and cursing the refs for their negligent calls. And then when the Pats are down, and my family is wracked with tension, there's old Uncle, clapping away and letting out boisterous yippees till his cheeks turn red.
     For the past couple of years, my family hasn't gathered for the Superbowl. I wonder if this is because most of the cousins have grown up and are away at school or wherever, or if it is linked to my uncle and his boisterous fits of passion, always in support of the wrong team.
     This year, my superbowl was largely uneventful, but still wicked awesome. I was in my room, chillin' and working on this here blog, when suddenly my roommate called to me in her little voice, "Hey Laur, wanna get our toast on and watch a show about monkeys?" I could practically hear the smile in her voice.
     "Absolutely," I replied, because we're always saying "absolutely" around here. That's because our next door neighbor Liz always says "absolutely" and it's absolutely hilarious. Bahaha. So, anyways, I pushed the ol' laptop aside and leaped off my bed and sidled in next to Laur on our unbearably uncomfortable futon.
     The monkeys were rather alarming at first. I am used to seeing chimpanzees and orangutans and gorillas. That's it. This show had these monkeys with faces like owls, wide and flat and eerily observant. There were some that were small and rodent-like, with gangly limbs and high, shrill voices.  The spookiest ones were the baboons, I thought. Their faces were elongated, stretched into a perpetual scowl, and their eyes were small, piercing, and unerringly serious. They seemed to be of a volatile disposition because they were always fighting, these great furry beasts leaping and tearing at each other. It was rather horrifying.
      I was greatly impressed by the show's coverage of monkey communication. In many different species of monkeys, there is a communication system used to alert one another of approaching predators and stuff. It was so cool to see them interact and understand each other, and to see them leap and swing away from danger. Their tactics were extremely impressive. One type of monkey lived on cliff ledges, and upon the approach of a predator, would scare them off by rolling boulders down at it. Downright clever!
      Eventually, the monkey show came to close, so Laur and I decided to attempt to watch the superbowl. I must say, it was very difficult shifting gears from watching the monkeys to watching a bunch of burly padded fellas crash into each other. It didn't help that we had just finished hitting a super bowl of our very own. I kept forgetting that I wasn't watching monkeys anymore; my perspective still had leftover residue from the previous show. I found myself thinking aloud: "Wow, what an impressive maneuver. Very clever!" I shook my head, realizing that I had forgotten the football players were humans.
      "Wow, I forgot we weren't watching monkeys anymore."
Laurie laughed and vocalized understanding.
       "Look at the way they mill about each other. Just like monkeys," I said, still in awe.
Just then, the camera zoomed in on one of the players.
He just so happened to be black.
We laughed in horror at our own inadvertent racism, and silently hoped for a commercial. After all, to us, anything is better than football.