More than hairy children

I watched the Today Show today while I was mockcercising (that's what I call it when I'm in workout clothing, but have no real motivation). They had a segment on about the chimpanzee who attacked a woman a couple of weeks ago and caused major trauma to her face and hands. They're not even sure if she's going to live at this point. And this chimp was not your everyday pet monkey, he's a famous one. You've probably seen him in the Old Navy commercials.

After the chimp started to attack, the owner stabbed him with a kitchen knife and then called 911. The police came and ended up shooting the chimp. The owner said, "After I stabbed him, he just looked at me like, 'Mommy, what have you done?'" She didn't mention that he went on tearing off her friend's face. In the interview, she was showing the reporter around her home and where he used to play, sleep, eat his filet mignon and lobster tails and take his tea with Zanex. She had his drawings hung up on the refrigerator. She said, "He wouldn't be more my son if I had given birth to him." The reporter summed it up by saying, "She had to stab her son to save her best friend."

Then they segwayed to talking with other people who are raising chimps like children, dressing them and sleeping in the same bed, etc. One woman in Montana has two of these pets , and she's not worried at all about being attacked. She cited the statistics of death in airplane and automobile crashes as being much higher than by chimp attacks. Mmm-hmmm. This same woman also hypothesized that this attack had more to do with the chimp's age and having gone through puberty. Maybe that explains why the chimp was on antidepressant medication. I tend to agree with the animal control expert who was quoted as saying, "People have to realize they're more than hairy children."

As you can see, this story was much more intriguing than riding the exercise bike and I HAD to slow down so I could hear it better. These people are all crazy. And I feel bad for the reporter too, because he's apparently been assigned to this story for about two weeks and had to interview lots of crazy people who have monkey pets. I can picture his next job interview.
"What experience do you have?"
"Well, I extensively covered the chimp attack of '09."
"I see."

Now that I've rationalized both wasting time by watching TV and sharing it with all my blogging friends, here is a picture of my favorite monkey...