Larry, Curly, and Moe

Thank god we’ve had luck on our side thus far, because I’m led to wonder where in the world the professionals we hired went.

Our driver, coming back to bring the chimpanzees with caregivers to the house one by one (or potentially two by two) on the motorcycle, showed up drunk. So, we made other arrangements, not eager to have a motorcycle crash with chimpanzees onboard.

The caregivers came instead by bicycle -- and by lucky coincidence, Kathé, our biggest chimpanzee, LOVES riding the bicycle and it tends to lull her into a supernatural calm.

How STUPID I was to have imagined that we could bring 5 chimpanzees to the house and have no one be the wiser.

Calling out, it was not our chimpanzees making the noise but our damned caregivers as they bumbled into the house, without flashlights, though thankfully with all five chimpanzees.

Kathé started pant-hooting, her voice echoing through our big empty, already-packed cement house.

Instead of going around the side of the house, they came through the center -- no problems, but lots of noise!

We put the chimpanzees then into the depot, but as we struggled with the ancient key on the ever ancient padlock, the calls of chimpanzees had alerted some neighbours, who came into the yard curiously to see what in the world was going on!

Argh!

I managed to gain order, expel everyone from the yard and get the chimpanzees quietly to sleep in the depot only by being a short-tempered bitch, but at least now the night is calm and quiet and we can plan for tomorrow morning.

We’d asked the guys to bring their mattresses and flashlights -- neither of which they brought, and proceeded to ask us for “spares” -- like we have four spare mattresses lying around!

“Give us cigarettes,” one of the caregivers demanded, rather rudely.

“We don’t have any,” I snapped at him.

“Give us money to go and get cigarettes,” he continued. When I snapped at him again to be quiet and go to bed, he looked terrified!

So we have five chimpanzees now sleeping in the depot, with one caregiver, and three employees sleeping on various couches in the living room, since they didn’t want to sleep without mattresses on the floor of our nice house.

Oh, and despite it being about 90º even IN the house, they asked us for BLANKETS for the night! Come ON! I might have to throw someone in the river tomorrow.

I can only hope that they brought the cups and plates for the chimps, so that we can prepare them some Sleepy Milk in the morning. At least then they wouldn’t have forgotten EVERYTHING! (save the chimps, of course)