Should You Buy a Monkey?

Link from The Consumerist



Like so many of us, Stewart at My Family's Money has always wanted to own a monkey. His reasoning is sound: "They are ridiculously awesome and having one as a pet would be even more awesome." Stewart decided it would be a good idea to estimate the total lifetime cost of owning a monkey. We think he's playing a little fast and loose with the numbers, but then again where do you go to get hard stats on monkey ownership? Not from our lazy Census takers, that's for sure.

Stewart is a realist: he admits that there are definitely some high costs associated with monkey ownership. But he also considers the fact that a monkey can be an investment if properly trained. You know, to ride dogs and stuff:

The only reason you have a monkey as a pet is to train it to do cool things. These cool things can also earn you money, if you know how to crack the competitive birthday party/rodeo market. Lets assume that my monkey isn't smart enough to be a public spectacle until he is 5 years old and I put him out to stud for the last two years of his life. That leaves me about 10 years of use out of the monkey.

We think Stewart's post is "ridiculously awesome," but we also love the humorless commenter on his site who reminds us all that "Monkeys are not pets":

Just last week a little boy here was bitten to the bone and seriously injured by his family's "pet" lemur.

Whatever. That lemur was probably just angry he didn't have chaps and a tiny dwarf border collie to ride.

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My favorite quote from the comments (emphasis added) :

We just got a puppy and the ONE and only thing i want to do now is to get a monkey. Everyone asks me why. It's obvious: you teach the monkey how to take care of the dog and the stupid goldfish we have. It's like a self-sustaining pet ecosystem.

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Now I have visions. Nay, GRAND VISIONS of the future.