ONE LESS FOR THE MONKEYS

As if those events weren't enough for one day, home alone after the morning described in The Approach of the Weedwhackers, and after I had later in the morning chased the monkeys out of the garden because the chain alarm sounded as described in The Me Squad, as I was even later trying once more to get some work done in the loft I heard a loud CR-R-RACK! and a leafy thrashing that could only have been caused by a newbie in the plum tree - young monkeys nowadays, I'm telling you... why, when I first moved here, even the youngest monkeys could climb, but ever since they've gotten used to the cushier modern lifestyle - o yeah, the plum tree... so for the third time that day I ran downstairs, this time toward the big glass doors, through which I could see a plum-filled monkey - the project supervisor - sitting on the rail of the deck picking his fangs with a pinkynail, savoring the flavor of my nearly ripe plums in a distant attitude that reminded me of a wine gourmet I once knew, until the ape heard the sound of my feet, turned, spotted me through the screen and took off redtailed, screeching to warn his crew still operating in the branches "The guy who has a thing for these plums is coming, so take off, now!"

The newbie crew in the tree itself, one of whom had snapped the branch, were not used to being chased by humans at such close range; they were but clouds of leaves whirling in the heart of the tree as they made for the exit and hit the ground running, also redtailed, the supervisor ahead of them looking back redfaced over his shoulder at me (redfaced and shaking my fist), to see if I was seriously in pursuit (a common concern among thieves of all species). I noticed that under his arm he was carrying a good cache of plums for later; unlike the empty-pawed newbies, he had anticipated a rousting. I also noticed that while supervising the hairy work force, he had eaten his take of plums fastidiously and not thrown the leftovers here and there, as one might expect a wild and unmannered monkey to do; rather, he had left a pile of peels and pits laid out along the railing in a sort of spontaneous natural nyah-nyah...

But although the monkeys had gotten a few of my plums, because I had reacted quickly most of the fruits remained on the tree and outside monkeys, so "One less for the monkeys..." became my loud mantra for each plum I picked on the spot as I walked around and beneath the tree, climbing the ladder in the hot and humid afternoon, plumbing the leafy reaches, squinting upward among the green-plum-colored and shaped underleaves, looking for orbs that might be barely tinting red but still indistinct against the glare, using my extended branch cutter when I couldn't reach high enough. I intoned "One less for the monkeys" at least a few dozen times, so the pickings were pretty good. I'll enjoy those purple goodnesses over there, by the big kitchen window.

You'd think that by now, after 15 years here with a garden and over 5 with a producing plum tree, I'd have known instinctively (how long does it take to acquire an instinct?) that after such extended rain and inactivity the monkeys would be hungry and out in force, coming for their vig-- and preempt them 100%, finally get to see a mob of monkeys nowhere near my plum tree, looking at me with respect. Maybe some day. For now, my dawning hope is that they acquire even more of a modern, processed lifestyle, maybe get a thing for couches and junk food, develop an aversion to fresh fruits and vegetables...

But I'd never stoop so low as to leave out a bunch of jumbo bags of potato chips...

THE FRIDGE ON THE BALCONY

Lately, our refrigerator seems to be acquiring a domineering personality. I know that in using the "p" word in regard to a mere machine I am crossing a tacit boundary into no-no territory, a place no one ever goes except in very remote theory bandied about in academic chambers or in radical sci-fi, but even though it's just an inkling I'm having, it's pretty damn big for an inkling, and it inkles with a disturbing resonance.

It's only the refrigerator so far, but can the stereo, the washing machine, the PC, the van, be far behind? (These devices are, after all, by their very nature, in this together...) Perhaps this change in personality is temporary, and due merely to power fluctuations; though perhaps, more sinisterly, it is due to corporate planning, or even to unknown evolutionary powers of programmed silicon.

Who can predict the future of open-ended "progress," any more than we can know the end result of a seeded tomato that glows in the dark and tastes like tobacco, or a reproductive insect that despises onions and sings Mozart? Where is the end in all this? And is that end a reward or a punishment? No one knows of course, since we haven't been here before, which is one of the drawbacks of one-track 4-dimensional living. Nevertheless, the end result has been anticipated in all the myths, if one cares to look with other than educated eyes.

But to get back to the refrigerator: when left open, it used to say, briefly and politely (I'm anthropomorphizing some electronic beeps here, refrigerator voices are still fairly primitive) "Excuse me, but..." or "I say, master..." or "Would you mind perhaps saving yourself some electricity by..." but recently, due to some kind of unilateral siliconic mutation, the fridge has begun sounding more like Il Duce on a bad day: "Hey, bonehead!" or "Yeah, I mean you! GET-OVER-HERE-NOW and shut my damn door!!" or "Drop what you're doing and shut this before I shut you!!" We're not exactly bowing yet, but circuits are tireless things, whereas we are but creatures of flesh and blood that must earn incomes and invade oil-rich countries to keep our essential machines running.

There have been indications that it could be some kind of vast corporate conditioning of the consumer in preparation for ever more egregious and domineering product lines that actually force their purchase, leading to the eventual corporate-controlled electromechanical world takeover, whose imminence we all sense in many current office-holders, and each time we note that our own machines themselves are surpassing us in the IQ department, always staying just a bit beyond reach of our programming ability, flashing their taunting lights in our faces night and day, running up our power bills behind our backs and beyond our control then phasing out, necessitating our purchase of even more advanced models that make us feel even more inferior to them, until if we unplug them for any length of time they make us start over from scratch when at last we are forced to plug them in again.

And like any incipient dictator, the fridge is deaf to the admonitions of a mere user like myself, who must sleep and eat, can be caught off guard and has only the instruction manual provided. I suppose that the day I come home to a crowd of appliances madly cheering below the balcony whence the refrigerator is declaiming a new world order is the day I should start to worry. Or maybe I should start to worry now.