Inktober 26: #Remove
A trip through the Monkey Hole
Many years ago, when we were moving into the very small house across the street from Ms. Wilma, we removed a wood stove from the room that was going to the be bedroom for our older boys, who were two and three years old at the time. It was easy enough to #remove the stove; that job called for strong backs and weak minds. But getting rid of the hole in the ceiling where the stovepipe went—that job was above my pay grade. So I left the stovepipe hole. I jammed some pink insulation up into the hole to keep the winter winds from whirling down into my little boys’ bedroom. We put the bunk beds in the same corner where the wood stove had been.
My son Henry, the occupant of the top bunk and a curious little chap, asked about the hole in the ceiling directly above his pillow.
“That?” I answered. “That’s the hole where the monkeys come out.”
It wasn’t the most well-considered answer I’ve ever given. I can admit that. But in my defense, I thought it would be funny. The image of monkeys boiling out of a hole in the ceiling—that’s funny, right? On the other hand, I wasn’t the one who would be sleeping with my face less than two feet from the Monkey Hole.
Henry looked traumatized, and Heyward wasn’t looking so great either. Lou Alice, ever the quick thinker, said, “Ha, ha. It almost sounded like Daddy said ‘monkeys.’ He said ‘bunnies.’ That’s the hole where the BUNNIES come out!” Then she climbed onto the top bunk with a bunny puppet and a couple of stuffed animals and dropped them from Monkey Hole.
But the boys weren’t buying it. They had heard what they heard. That was a Monkey Hole directly above Henry’s bed.
What with closets and doors and windows, that corner was by far the best place for the bunk bed in the boys’ little room. I hoped that if Henry slept on his top bunk a couple of nights, he would see that no monkeys were forthcoming, and all would be well. But the next morning, both boys were huddled together in the bottom bunk. I asked Heyward if maybe he wanted to switch and sleep on the top bunk, Nothing doing. Lou Alice, not happy that I had started this whole thing, suggested that maybe the Monkey Bunk should be my new bed.