When I was growing up the neighbors up the hill from my Granny Brennan's house had a monkey. We would walk to their house and visit the monkey almost every time we visited. All the kids would be there (assorted aunts and uncles, their friends and Billy and Rhonda and I). Everybody would have a ball with the monkey except for me.
When the other kids would be oohing and ahhing and pawing the cage and the monkey would be reaching for them I would stand in the background. The monkey would gently check everyone for bugs (this is something monkeys just do - nobody had bugs) and it would reach through the cage and pet everyone who petted them except for me.
The second I would step toward the cage the monkey would have a screaming fit. It would jump and go crazy in the cage and God forbid that I be in reach of it because it would grab my hair and try to pull it out! It hated me. I never did anything to it. It just hated me on sight.
One day my dad was using the Hatfield's driveway to turn the car in when Mr. Hatfield came out to the car carrying the monkey to show my parents. The 3 of us kids were in the backseat and I was in my usual seat in the middle. The monkey was fine until it saw me. Then it dove through the window and bit me on the chin before they could get it off of me. It didn't draw blood but it was definitely a scarey thing to happen to a kid.
A couple of years ago my Uncle Jimmy mentioned that the monkey hated him too. The one thing Jimmy and I had in common was our blonde hair. Everybody else had dark hair. Maybe that monkey just didn't like blondes.
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