Smoking Chimpanzee Can’t Kick the Habit

I love the zoo. I always have. The sights, the sounds, the …smells….

And there is no smell at the zoo like the smell of the Ape House. I would often joke with my friends that it would be a most excellent prank to make one of those plug-in air fresheners that would capture the essence of Ape House. Then you go over to a friend’s house and find an obscure outlet that they never use and plug it in. Mwa hahaha.

Amazingly, the Ape House at Bloemfontein Zoo in Johannesburg, South Africa has found a way to make the smell even more revolting and possibly cancerous. Their star chimp, Charlie, has taken up smoking to pass the time. Believe it or not, zoo visitors would toss him soda cans and cigarettes and the monkey would down the soda and puff away on the cigarettes. And now, he’s addicted.

This amazes me. And get this, when zookeepers come to check on him he would hide his cigarettes like a guilty child. Zoos are wonderful. Where else could a chimp learn the values of addiction and shame?

So I started wondering…what if I threw a pencil, a calculator, and my W2-form into Charlie’s cell. Could this chimp prepare my tax return? Well, there was only one way to find out.

It was a hot and sticky day in Johannesburg. Various bugs took turns swarming about my head as I asked for directions to the famous smoking chimp. An obscenely bright orange taxi took me and the cloud of bugs to Bloemfontein Zoo. As we drove under the high-arched gate I knew I had entered another, almost alien realm. Trees so tall that they disappeared into the sky lined the well-worn road. Vines as thick as tanker trucks laced between the ancient branches.

The zoo apparently specialized in primates, and the pungent smell flooded my senses. I felt the car skid slightly as we ran over a patch of discarded banana peels.

“Tell me,” I asked the cab driver, “Is Charlie friendly?”

The cabbie caught my eye in his rear view mirror and his toothy smile was his only response. I didn’t let my developing apprehension show. After another five minutes on the road, we arrived at the compound referred to as The Chimporium. The cabbie helped me with my bag, took my money, and chuckled. And then he got in his car and departed in a trail of dust.

The cigarettes had made Charlie paranoid….among other things. I was told to approach his cage alone, as he felt threatened when outnumbered. I entered his shelter and was greeted with the acrid scent of monkey feces mixed with menthol. A wire-meshed fence separated his enclosure from the corridor where I stood. The sun was beginning to set, and long shadows stretched their fingers across the exhibit making it hard to see much of anything. Then in the corner, I noticed a faint orange light. It flared quickly to a bright red, and then faded back into darkness. He coughed.

Now was the time. I reached into my backpack and carefully removed my calculator, pencil and W2-form, as well as the appropriate 1098E form. I felt his eyes upon me, and I lost my handle on the calculator, dropping it to the cool concrete floor. It made a sickening thud, but wondrously continued to work. I let out a breath and gathered my items together. There was a slot that was used for food, which visitors also used to pass cans of soda, cigarettes, and homework assignments to Charlie. I pushed the objects through the slot and waited.

After several nervous minutes, he emerged from the shadows and began to examine my items. He took my forms and seemed to look them over very curiously. He held my W2 in his strong right hand and approached me. Only the mesh-fence separated us. I held my breath and waited to see what he’d do. He looked back at the form and gingerly yet purposefully rolled it up tight and held it out towards me. I was so shocked I didn’t know what to do, so I reached for a match and lit my W2 form, which Charlie promptly smoked.

Charlie taught me a powerful lesson that day. Chimps can’t do taxes.