Simian Love - WTF?

There is a photo challenge going around now in the blogsphere which is quite fun. The rules are these:

1. Open the 4th photo folder of your computer.
2. Choose the 4th photo of that folder & publish it on your blog.
3. Explain the photo.

Well, I just had to laugh. How apropos. Yes, I admit, I have a folder titled "Animals," which holds emails I get from friends who are animal lovers themselves and know what a sucker I am for a cute, cuddly face. And this picture was sent to me by a good friend who is an animal lover and knew I would just love them. She was right. This picture is one of a series of pictures showing the rescue mission of pandas caught in the earthquake that hit China last year. And these little fellas were lucky enough to be rescued.

And speaking of loving animals… the headlines this week are filled with the chimpanzee gone wild. It’s a very sad story really for all parties involved. A tragedy, first and foremost, for the woman who was injured and is now lying in a hospital bed fighting for her life. How does one recover from this? She will never be the same again. Travis, the ape – the 200 lb. ape - literally tore her face off. A coworker mentioned this morning that this poor woman has already endured 12-14 surgeries in the last two days. Tragic.

Fatal for Travis who went berserk (no one still knows why). Did he snap because he did not recognize the woman and was then trying to protect his owner? Was it a reaction of the Lyme Disease he had? Was it an adverse reaction to the Xanax the owner slipped into his tea to calm him down earlier in the day when he was beginning to show signs of aggression and restlessness? Obviously, there was already something wrong. But here's the thing. An ape is wild, folks. It is not and should not be kept as a domesticated pet, regardless of how cute it is. Because it is cute and can show docility, it does not mean it cannot be aggressive as his nature - his true instinctual nature - will sometimes reveal. It had no right to be living in a home with a human and passing off as a human-wannabe to humor its owner. An ape has no reasoning skills and, as such, we never know how they will react and thus cannot be surprised nor get upset at them when they show no "sense." The only person here who showed no reasoning skills or sense was the owner. Plain and simple. Black and white. And because of her irrational and poor choice, her beloved friend died in a most, horrible of ways...causing a most horrible of accidents.

A tragedy for the owner. What happened to this woman? We know she lost her husband and daughter and that in itself is a tragedy and trauma that one never recovers from. As a wife and mother, my heart goes out to her because I can empathize with her loss and how she might have gotten lost in the grief. It is very, very sad. But to attach yourself to an ape and use that ape as a surrogate husband/child? No. This woman needed psychiatric help because she had crossed that line between reality and fantasy a long time ago. Somewhere along the way this got very blurred for her and she no longer could distinguish what was "normal." She needed experts to help her deal with the grief because this abnormal impulse that she gave into clearly was not sane and took a fatal misdirection.

The newspapers each day reveal more and more into the life of this woman and her ape. She slept with him. She bathe with him. She drank wine with him. She fed him filet mignon. She kissed him on the lips. WTF? Listen, I love my daughter’s dogs with all of my heart, but if you think you’ll ever find me in a bathtub bathing with them, think again.

No. This woman needs a lawyer and needs a lawyer fast. Someone to tell her to shut the f*ck up because she is too candid and not helping her case at all because every time she opens her mouth she just seems to infuriate people more. The public does not seem to be sympathetic towards her; nor I. What happens if her friend dies, God forbid? What then? Is she held responsible for her death? I don’t know. Do any of you know? But what I do know is that by having that ape as a pet, she put herself and others at risk and it ended up being life-threatening (and let's pray not fatal) to her friend. That is the real tragedy here.

I ask, where were her friends and family? Couldn’t they be honest with her and help her seek help? Because there are times when the kid gloves need to come off and a loved one needs to be spoken to in a manner that brings it home. Whatever you have to do to bring it home. Maybe they did, I don't know. Maybe they did and she did not listen. But continue if you love her. This is not normal folks. Having a pet that you love and you take tender loving care of is one thing; living with a pet in a manner that smells of "partnership" and can be downright dangerous and uncontrollable is insane. Yeah, the time for kind words and understanding was over a long time ago. Somebody needed to tell her straight up to let the ape go and get herself to a shrink quick because that simian-human love thing was not cool, was not normal, and was f*cking insane. Seriously.

But if you ask me, I think Travis forgot he was a human substitute and was "supposed" to show "restraint." Please. He's an ape. Again, aggression is normal for him. Whether he was confused, frustrated or sick, no one knows. All I know is that another of his kind would have been able to handle him. They share the same dangerous strength; the share the same dangerous canine teeth; they speak the same language. And one more thing I can surely bet on. I don't think Travis wanted any wine, steaks, Xanax to calm him down, a clean bed, or bubble baths. No. He was not human. He did not care about these things. And he certainly was not supposed to be this woman's idea of a substitute husband or son. He was an ape with all of the perils that that entailed to herself and the public at large. But I bet you anything that Travis wanted nothing more than to roll around in dirt and get dirty, wanted nothing more than to be naked in his own glorious hairy self and not "dressed up" like a human, wanted nothing more than having fleas to pick at from another flea-ridden simian friend, wanted nothing more than trees to climb and swing from, and wanted nothing more than to be a true simian and eat shite like leaves, insects, bananas, fruits, nuts, and maybe even some small reptiles. Travis couldn't have cared less for steaks (as simians are primarily herbivorous animals) or wine. Trust me. And Travis would most probably had wanted a life with a nice, hairy jungle chimp to connect with in the normal sense like all species should do with their own. The ape, plain and simple, needed to be in his own habitat; not ours. But because everyone around Ms. Herold, the owner, condoned her bizarre behavior, this little simian-human love freak show turned into a tragedy.

And Saturday Night Live going to have a field day with this...

And if you want to read some little known facts on how strong and dangerous this "cute" little animal is, click here.