Monkeys Stole My Mints

I just got out of my Human Growth and Development class and I've come to the conclusion that monkeys are amazingly, yet annoyingly intelligent. In class we were discussing the definition of intelligence and our professor brought up the similarities between monkeys' brains and humans' brains. We discussed how monkeys have some intelligence, but not quite as much as humans because they don't need it as much as humans. Humans are much more dynamic. As we discussed the monkeys' brains, my professor, who asks us to call him Doug instead of professor, mentioned that monkeys are very clever when stealing things because they find ways to deceive or manipulate those whom they are attempting to steal from. As I heard all of this I thought back to my recent experience with monkeys and realized I've been a victim of their deceit! I feel so unintelligent because I totally fell for their trick.

Yesterday I heard some trees rattling outside my window, so I glanced outside and caught two monkeys hanging on the tree. When they saw me through the window they pretended to grab some leaves and chew them, but I could tell they weren't really eating. I thought it was cute so I pulled out my camera to take pictures. When I wasn't in front of the window they kept moving around the tree and as soon as I popped back up in the window, they would sit still and pretend to pick leafs. I thought I would be clever and play peek-a-boo with them so I would hide and then pop my head out the window again. Every time I hid and came back I noticed they would be eying the window and the chalet. After a while I think they realized what I was doing because they started grooming each other and pretended they didn't notice me. I loved watching them so I took a video and got completely distracted with their grooming. What I didn't notice is that as they were grooming themselves, they were secretly planning their robbery plan. After they were done grooming themselves they cleverly found a way to jump through the trees and up the roof, across our chalet, and down to the garbage can that was outside. They had scouted the chalet and found that there were people all around it. The only way to get to the trash can was through the roof and the only one that could stop them from getting on the roof was me, but I was too distracted by their grooming to notice what they were planning. lol

Also, while we go to tea time, we leave our stuff in the class, including the bowl of mints the staff leave for us, on our desks. While we are out, the monkeys come in and steal the bowls. They run away with them into the forest and then sit and peel the mints. They've figured out how to open the mints and they know what time we go to tea. Oh so clever.