Pieces of Koco: Barrel of Monkeys

The wikipedia entry for Barrel of Monkeys is great:

Barrel of Monkeys is a hyperbolistic idiom referring to good-natured pandemonium.

According to Charles E. Funk, word historian:
"One monkey arouses a great deal of amusement. Two or more then double the interest and amusement. If one were to release a barrel full of monkeys, we must suppose that their antics would become hilariously comical."

For me a barrel of monkeys is all of that good stuff, and more.

I used to love playing this game as a kid. You take out one and try to interlock its strange hook of an arm into a second monkey's arm, then you pick up a third with the second monkey, and so on until you have picked them all up and created one long string of freaky red monkeys. It's not as easy as it sounds. It's tricky towards the end.

I don't actually remember loving Barrel of Monkeys--I was too little to remember--but I love the story or rather my mother's memory of me loving Barrel of Monkeys. According to her, I used to take my Barrel of Monkeys around with me everywhere.

Once I lost them and they had to make an announcement over the PA system to 500+ people. "A barrel of monkeys has gone missing. If you find them, please contact the office. Thank you." This made a lot of people laugh, I was still sad about my missing monkeys.



I currently have two Barrels of Monkeys, so I'm going to give one away and I'll list it on Philadelphia's freecycle network. Freecycle, as they state on their site, is all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. I like that.

Maybe you don't live in Philly, but you really want to play with my monkeys. I can mail them to you if you are willing to pay me for the shipping via paypal. Email me: koco(at)misskoco.com

The Barrel of Monkeys is part of Pieces of Koco.