For the past 5 years, my room mate and I have thrown a Halloween party dubbed The Socioween. Last year, a friend came as Alan from a little known independent movie, The Hangover. To complete his costume, he adopted a beautiful baby doll.

However, once the party was over, the baby remained. The only logical conclusion was to set the baby’s toxic, plastic face on fire in a small, unventilated area.

More Baby Photos After the Break

While I was toiling away in high school, my mother was supporting our family as a visiting nurse. She would visit low income families, helping patients with long standing issues or who recently had surgery. While driving me through Providence on my way to school, she would leave me with casual observations; such as the inverse correlation between low income and the size of your television.

One particularly unmemorable morning, my mother decided to tell me a story about her previous day at work. Mom was visiting a patient complaining about abdominal pain. The patient, a large, large, large overweight woman, had surgery on her stomach a few days prior. When my mom entered the apartment, she knew something was a little “off.” The air was heavy and smelled faintly of almonds.

Mom inspected the hefty patient, lifting folds and searching through crevices on her torso. My mother had soon located the problem. Under the patient’s fat folds was the cut from her recent surgery. The stitches had burst days ago and the large woman’s large insides were peaking out. The patient was so fat that she did not even notice her gangrene wound.

My mother is not a visiting nurse any more.

I was in Colorado this past weekend, attending the wedding of my dear cousin, Phil. More on that next week. This sparked memories of a wedding I attended about 3 years ago.

In 2007 my cousin, John, was getting married in New York City. Thanks to my aunt’s wallet, I was able to stay at a quaint and quiet hotel in one of the nicer parts of the city. The room was small, but it had access to a courtyard containing a stone path that circled a small tree that was surrounded by lush, green ivy. There was also a foot-high stone wall. On this stone wall was a white, porcelain statue standing at about a foot and a half high. The statue glowed in the moonlight, like a warning light advising all who see it to stay away. In the morning, I wandered out into the courtyard to discover the face beyond the glow: the Monkey.

The next night, I came back to my hotel room thoroughly tipsy after the wedding. With two younger brothers and a couple of cousins in tow, we sat around making noise and chatting. I sat in the courtyard with my cousin, Lou, enjoying the cool October air. Without warning, Lou stood up from his chair, and with a twinkle in his eye, began kicking the Monkey. When the Monkey fell off the wall it was revealed to be hollow. Lou lifted the Monkey by its base and threw it at the small tree. The Monkey hit the bark with a dull “thunk,” and it dropped into the ivy. Lou was not satisfied.

While I was in an inebriated rant about the “poor monkey,” Lou was winding up like he was preparing for the Olympic hammer throw. He scuffled through the ivy, did a full 360 degree spin, and let loose his grip on the Monkey. The little porcelain fellow impacted on the tree, shattering into a million jagged pieces, like an oversize eggshell. Being “under the influence,” the commotion was too much for me to bare and I ran back into my room screaming like a maniac. The Monkey was destroyed.

Below is the last known photo of the Monkey before its demise.