A Damn Dirty Post

A loyal reader complained to me yesterday that this blog didn't feature enough about monkeys.

I'd just like to clear the air. This blog has nothing against simians of any stripe. I'm quite fond of monkeys. There's very little in this world that can't be improved by monkeys.

I once had an imaginary friend that was an ape. And he was a *real* imaginary friend. Not one of those fake imaginary friends. Mr. Woggles was real.

Woggles was born in Teaneck, NJ, the illegitimate love child of Penelope Pennington and Yellowboy.

Ms. Pennington was a paralegal with a prestigious New York Law firm. Yellowboy, contrary to what his name would lead you to believe, was not a superhero. Yellowboy was a private investigator, and not a good one at that. His specialty was solving cases involving missing poodles.

Since there aren't that many reported cases of missing poodles, Yellowboy would kidnap poodles and then wait for their owners to contact him with the case. The problem, of course, was that the owners were actually relived the annoying dogs were gone and went about their lives happily canine free.

After going bankrupt from feeding the 64 poodles he had accumulated, Yellowboy disappeared into the New Jersey night never to be seen again. He resurfaced briefly in 2004 at a tryout for "American Idol," singing a medley of Brian Adams songs. Canada was not amused.

(And yes, Yellowboy and Pennington were human. It was a temporal anomaly that they had an ape for a child. Or nanotechnology. Take your pick.)

Woggles left Teaneck in the early 1990s to pursue his dream of starting a newspaper devoted to the British soap opera "Eastenders." His hopes were crushed when he discovered there was already a publication about the show (who knew?), and he turned to the world of business journalism.

He soon snagged a prestigious spot as a reporter with Meat! Magazine. Unfortunately, he misunderstood the editorial direction of Meat! and was fired after publication of his first article, an in-depth (and lavishly illustrated) expose on the Teaneck "gentlemen's" club, Hunka Chunka. The magazine's audience – Midwestern deli managers – were not amused.

I met Woggles about two years later, when he strolled into my cubicle at yet another business magazine, mistaking it for the shoe department at Henri Bendel. We became fast friends, and he was actually rented a room in our house for several years, until my husband got tired of Woggles using his toothbrush.

I haven't seen Woggles recently and am hoping that if he reads this, he'll be in touch. Jak-El and Dan-El miss their Unka' Monkey.

Final Thought for the Day: Okay, I wrote about monkeys. Are ya' happy now? Are ya'?

Happy Tuesday.