After a night of little sleep, this monkey affects me more than it normally would. Normally it would just leave me giddy and teary eyed. I don't even care about caring right now, or el cuidar, the character trait the library is promoting this month, I just care about cuteness.

Look at that face. I don't want to have a baby. I want to have a baby monkey. Science is working on that, right? Designer babies and such.

This reminds me of when my little sister Emma and I cruelly yet hilariously convinced Molly, the youngest, that she was a monkey our parents adopted at the zoo. Molly was the cutest kid ever. She was also super sensitive and gullible, as I guess all coddled 4 year olds are. But this was the Carr house, so she needed to Buck Up. Plus she was the youngest of seven, so my parents had already given up. Molly got away with some pretty ridiculous shit, as my mother blamed it all on the fictitious evil twin, Dolly. Oh, no. That couldn't have been my Molly. That must have been Dolly. Molly used this excuse handed to her on a silver platter often. My mom would even pretend to beat us in the bathroom, banging on the wall, whispering, "Pretend to scream from pain," in order to make diabolical, innocent, conniving, sensitive Molly-Dolly smile after a minor infraction on her rights as spoiled, youngest child, like pointing and laughing at her when she got the remote control car stuck in her hair again.

So, we felt it was our duty to humble her a bit.

"Molly, think about it. You're the only person in this family who has red hair. You're the only person in this family who has curly hair," I reasoned, using my intimidating, 9 years old superiority.

"You also have lots of freckles. We only have a few," 7 years old Emma added.

We were banking on the fact that Molly wouldn't realise that most monkeys don't have curly red hair nor freckles.

Before Molly could run for comfort, and as Emma continued to provide proof -- did Molly ever recall being born? -- I charged down the stairs to get my mother in on it.


"Mom, if Molly asks if she's a monkey we adopted from the zoo, say yes! I'll rub your back!" I blurted out in one breath, because I knew that woman would sell her kid to the devil for a back rub.

"For how long?"

"Twenty minutes!"

"Thirty."

"Fine!"

"Deal."

Wild haired Molly slowly walked down the stairs, one slow step at a time, like a drama queen, asking through watery eyes, in all seriousness, if she was an adopted monkey.

"Well, yes honey." Mom replied with a compassionate tone and furrowed brow, in an Oscar worthy moment, before we all caved and told Molly we were joking after she cried that cute-sad, child cry which makes you laugh while hoping no psychological damage is being done.

Molly got a ton of sympathy for her crying, mom got her back rub, and Em and I got the satisfaction of tricking Mo into believing she was actually a monkey. In that moment her face looked exactly like this: