THE SECOND MONKEY

So there it was, the big net cube, with snakes inside. Perhaps you recall that netting label photo that I posted in Part 1 (third post below), where, above the monkey on the net is a dark word-balloon that says "Pita!"? That's the Japanese onomatopoetic sound sort of for stoppage of an action (I say 'sort of' because like so much about Japan, it's hard to define; Japanese is full of such bizarrely subtle onomatopoeias, subject of another post). Something about the net that I could not identify would stop the monkey cold: a simian stickiness, an irritation, a scent-- something, there was something about this net that repelled furry red-faced beasts. Would it work? Now all I needed was a monkey.

One morning I was at the kitchen sink looking out over the garden, when down one of the big cedars came the solitary monkey I'd been waiting for. With a look of simian curiosity on his face, he ambled over to the netted garden containing some of his preferred vegetables, sat there at the side for a few moments sussing out the situation. He examined the bottom of the netting carefully, then scanned the top of the netting and did some advanced calculations. (Monkeys live in total adherence to an obscure economic principle that lies at the very heart of money, and that Krugman doesn't even talk about: "The greater the effort, the lower the value." You can't get much frugaler than a monkey.)

Algorithms completed, the beast then ambled over to the side of the garden away from the house and sat there peering through the net, seeing what was here and there: coupla fake yellow snakes, coupla fake orange snakes, monkey's onions, bob's garlic, chard and cabbage, monkey's carrots, bob's parsley, monkey's potatoes etc.

Then he made his move: ZAM! Straight to the top of the pole, in direct contact with the net, without the slightest sign of Pita! I, a rather solid skeptic, had fallen for-- monkey-trouble advertising, of all things. I had trusted a label! Just because it had a monkey beneath a little onomatopoetic stoppage sound on it! It had shown me what I wanted to see and I had fallen for it... I should have looked more closely at the second monkey on the label as I'm doing now, observing that the fellow beast is not only enjoying himself, he is inside the net! In fact, perhaps they both are! Or not. That's so the net makers can't be sued for false advertising. So I ran out and chased the real monkey away in person as usual.

Nevertheless, as one-sided as this ongoing struggle may appear, I don't let it get to me, because I'm a monkey too - a more advanced monkey, even - so I must have a pretty good shot at enjoying my own onions, right? I can be as devious as the next beast, right?

All I have to do is emulate Wall Street.

SURFING THE LEARNING CURVE

I haven't yet completed my anti-monkey garden Cube Noir, which I will do in a month or so when I attached the nets monkeys hate (or so it says on the label) to the tall fence posts my friend Ian and I put up last fall. At that time I'd already had my rows of winter vegs covered in hoops and nets, so I just left them that way.

After a while, with the growth under the nets not bothered by deer or monkeys I began to think that maybe after all I might possibly be able leave the garden that way (except maybe for tomatoes), rather than carry out Cube Noirization. Then a few days ago I was at home when a horde of monkeys were wandering by on their way to their upmountain fastnesses, most of them youngsters gamboling free range in the natural setting, picking up random thieving skills from their unscrupled parents.

One large male professor of brigandage invaded my garden while the simian university students watched from afar on their big campus. I watched from the kitchen window to see what the alpha guy would do about the nets-- if he would know that they were nets, what was under them and how to get at it. This was the crucial moment: if he noted no onions - monkeys most beloved food in my garden, as chronicled at length herein on several occasions (one of the nets covered three rows of onions) - then I might not have to go all Cube Noir on their simian butts.

The Prof swaggered into my garden like a simian John Wayne into a Dodge City bar, took up a key position and scanned the scene, locked on to the nets, pondered them, hand to chin like the Thinker with fur and a red face, then walked to one and grabbed at it, hefted it, fingered it, ran it through his simian databank, looked though it, tried to lift it (pinned down with logs and rocks), found the edge, found where he could create just enough of a gap to get his hand through and bring me charging out from the kitchen door shouting with a rock in my hand inspiring him to reflexively dash to safety with a handful of something maybe some cabbage but not onions, as I pointed out loudly to his fleeing back that this was my garden, I'm in charge here and he shouldn't forget it, he and his students know what will happen if I ever etc., but the students in their big amphitheater just yawned like this was Economics 101 after lunch, some lessons just get no traction.

So it looks like the Cube Noir for me, but I already suspect it won't work. It sure as hell wouldn't keep me out if I was hungry, homeless, characteristically unemployed and covered in fur. Also, I had seen the beast thinking. But if there's one thing we self-named sapients know for sure, it's that even if we don't know beans at the moment, in one way or another we can figure things out. All we have to do is get out there, get the right perspective and scan the scene, find the edges and give it a try, yes, even Cube Noir the place-- so what if we get a handful of nothing; taking action is the whole point.

Great discoveries lie ahead; the simian life is just one big learning curve.