The Coconut Monkey Horror

By Jeff Hillary

THE COCONUT MONKEY HORROR
is  the second collection of autobiographical stories filled with humor and heart, appropriately following THE GREAT PLATYPUS CAPER.  Once again, you'll laugh, you'll cry, and hopefully you'll buy copies for everyone you know.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nowadays Orange Productions LLC
• Release date: Apr 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386788911

Book preview

DEDICATION

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My first book was dedicated to my wonderful friends and family, and I completely stand by that dedication still. But I would like to take a moment to thank three of my best friends.

For The Princess, who I'm perpetually proud of. You've come a long way baby.

For Gary, who really is, after all these years, still a heck of a guy.

And for Jess, who would not only take a bullet for me, but leap at the attacker and beat him to death with his own gun.

What better friends could a person ask for?

And lastly, to my father, for always showing me what a man should be, and for being the ideal towards which I strive.

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

CONTENTS

Prologue: Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

Crowded House

Both Foo-Foo and Girly

The Legend of RJ

Fighting The Man (The Man Wins)

Lessons in Manhood

The Coconut Monkey Horror

Ribbons Against Terror

Cliff Diving

A Tale of Flying Urine

They Aren’t All Portuguese Water Dogs

A Deeper Shade of Green

The B Word

The Fievel Fiasco

The Grandfather Paradox

An Idiot Bachelor's Cookbook

Jeff and Gary Save The World

Raccoons Love Baloney

Confessions

When Gary Met Hillary

A Cup of Wi-Fi

I’m Adopted

My Ex-boyfriend

Who Likes Short Shorts?

The Cast of Misfits

Life Without My Dad

Bonfire of Stupidity

Birth of a Centaur

I Hate Pizza

The Most Golden of Woks

Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby

The Back-Up Boyfriend

Bosses

Rushing Through the Holidays

A Sharp Dressed Man

I Still Like Short Shorts

I Got Published, And So Can You!

My Sister’s Wedding

Departing Ms. Daisy

Lukewarm Legumes

Yelling At Small Children

Morning Routine

Attack Doves

Neighbors From Hell

The Ineptitude of Man

Little Shop Day

Epilogue: Brave New World

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Prologue: Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

It's been a long five years since I wrote my first book. A lot of things have changed. For starters, I moved to Austin. It's about 3 hours south of where I lived my entire life, so I could understand how when viewed from the outside it doesn't appear as drastic a change as it truly is. Let me try to rephrase it so you can better understand the depth of change I'm talking about here. I decided to move to a city where I had no friends, no family, no roommate, no professional contacts, and no job prospects.

While a three hour drive (provided you're guaranteed an utter lack of traffic) doesn't seem far, it's far enough. I rarely get to spend time with my friends from DFW. I'm also hard pressed to be on hand to help my parents with things around the house. While I'm not sad they can't ask me to take out the trash anymore, I am sometimes sad that I'm not able to help them with important things.

I was very lucky in two respects however. After I lived here for about a year, I was able to convince my parents to let me move my dog Daisy down here with me. You'll read more about Daisy in the coming chapters, she's quite the character. I was also extremely lucky in that my best friend The Princess moved to Austin about three months after me. Her move was completely unrelated to mine, plans were made for both moves separately, and boy was everyone surprised when we found out. You'll read more about that later too (and trust me, it's a good story).

This is the first time in my life I've truly lived by myself. And I've been doing it for over four years now. My entire life I either lived with my parents, or with my college roommate Daniel (of underwear clad axe wielding fame). I was well and truly alone in a new city, and forced to take care of myself for the very first time in my life. My parents were extremely helpful, making sure I had all the furniture a man could need, and my own washer and dryer. We even took particular care to select a couch that folded down into a bed, so I could have friends come and stay for the weekend.

My first book, The Great Platypus Caper (if you haven't read it, you should, it is after all the bestselling book at my parent's house) mostly focused on my college years, and the years of confusion afterward. This one is going to focus largely on me trying to find my place in the world as an adult. I promise we'll have some laughs along the way. Sometimes you'll laugh with me, other times you'll laugh at me. I don't mind, as long as you're enjoying yourself. So what do you say we dive right in together?

Crowded House

Before I begin this first chapter, I’d like to do a special shout-out to the two people who have managed my apartment complex since I moved in. Michelle and Rod. They’ve both been very kind and helpful people. Rod in particular enjoys announcing to new people Did you know we have a famous writer living here? every time I walk into the office. It’s a nice feeling. So, Michelle and Rod, I would like to state in no uncertain terms that the story below, future stories about my dog living with me, and any other stories in this book that would represent a confession to violating my lease, are completely and totally made up. For everyone who’s not Michelle and Rod, I promise you every word of this book is true. (I’m really hoping this paragraph doesn’t land me in court one day). And now, on with the story.

My first experience living by myself did not last long. About 4 months into living in my first one bedroom apartment I was joined by another guy, a woman, and a medium sized dog. They stayed with me for 4 months. But we'll get to that in a moment.

First, in order to truly understand this story, you need to understand something that eludes a great many people. You need to understand the nature of my friendship with The Princess. Almost anyone who sees us together gets this wrong, so let me set this straight. We're friends. You wouldn't think that's a difficult concept to grasp, but such is life. We've been friends for over a decade now. Our friendship has grown fairly deep over those years, but it is still, and always will be, just a friendship.

People instantly assume that there is some unrequited love between us. There is not. The love that exists between us is very open, shared equally between us, and extremely platonic. We have discussed the possibility of dating once or twice over the years. We both agree that while our friendship is wonderful, a relationship between us could only end in a murder/suicide. If you must picture it as something other than a deep and abiding friendship, imagine it as more of a father/daughter thing.

This is a fact that The Boy never seemed to grasp. Princess and The Boy were together for four years, and that entire time he assumed I was just waiting for my opportunity to steal her away from him. If I'm being honest with you, I enjoyed his incorrect assumption, because it was hilarious. It also gave me a really good chance to mess with his mind from time to time.

I can only imagine the joy that lived in his heart when he and The Princess decided to move to Austin. They were going to move into his mother's house (while she stayed in an apartment in Houston for work reasons). I like to imagine that he would go to sleep with a little smile on his face thinking I'll finally get her away from Jeff. for weeks.

I want you to imagine with me now the thoughts that must have raced through his mind when The Princess and he announced that they'd be moving to Austin, only to have me reply Oh good, I'll be there three months before you. The thought of his spirit so completely crushed by something I didn't even plan still gives me the warm fuzzies.

In case you haven't gathered, I never liked The Boy. He's whining, pedantic, and useless. I never tried to interfere in their relationship, and I kept my dislike of him to myself until it was over. But now I have no reason to hide anything from you. My life is an open book, this book in fact.

Fast forward to their break up. The Princess has realized that their relationship was utterly without passion, and possibly without a hint of love, and that it was time to end it. Nobody blamed her, we'd seen it for a while. But there was an issue. The Princess was a lawyer. She had just taken the bar and had to wait at least 3 months to actually get her license. Until that time she couldn't get a job as a lawyer, and thus couldn't afford to pay for her own apartment. The agreement was made that since they were staying in a house, there was plenty of room for both of them. It would be awkward, it would be difficult, but it was a part of the commitment they had made to each other. My father was in a very similar situation when his first marriage broke up. I was actually proud of The Boy for making this difficult choice. I began to consider that he wasn't merely a boy anymore, he was becoming a man.

A day and a half later I'm back in DFW attending the wedding of my dear friend Jess. My friend Roxi and I are having a great evening of dancing and good times. Gary was there too. If only Princess were around I'd be surrounded by all of my favourite people.

Almost as if hearing that thought, I get a call from Princess. It's the first time in my life I ever heard her cry. She told me that The Boy had kicked her out and she didn't have anywhere to live. He said it was just too hard to cope with. Man, a lot changes in a day and a half huh? As all the joy from the wedding faded from me, I explain to her that he is going to let her stay there one more night or I'll drive down there and sort him out myself. I tell her that I'll be back in town the next day and we'll move all her stuff into my apartment until she can afford her own place. I promise her that as long as I have a roof over my head, she'll always have one too. Yeah, sometimes I'm a nice guy.

The next day I visit The Boy's Mother's house to move out all her stuff and move all of it, and her dog, into my apartment. Oh man, that dog. Princess' dog is a Shiba Inu. They're a beautiful breed, but they're all jerks, and they shed with malicious intent. I've had dogs my whole life, but I guess my parents always picked breeds that didn't shed. I've never seen an animal that sheds like this dog. Thick white hair all over my beloved black couch, threaded through my dark grey blankets. I swear I found a couple inside a lamp. I kept saying that one day we would come home to find him completely bald standing next to a giant pile of hair with a prideful grin. Look what I did today Mommy!

I only had two rules for her while she lived for free under my roof. First, don't talk to me in the morning. I'm not a morning person, I hate getting up as early as I do for work, and I'd like to pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist for a couple hours. Secondly, and most importantly, The Boy was not allowed at my apartment for any reason. I was so furious at this tool for what he'd done. Not only had he made my friend cry, but he'd forced ME to assume HIS responsibilities. I was never her boyfriend, and yet here I was having to pay the price HE was supposed to pay for their relationship going the way it did. He hurt my friend deeply (I won't repeat all of the things he said to her), AND instead of standing up and being a man, was forcing me to do it in his place.

Not letting him into my apartment was really for his benefit. If I didn't see him, I couldn't go berserk and beat the daylights out of him. I made it very clear, he wasn't allowed over for any reason. Even if she thought I'd never find out, even if I was out of town. If he needed to give her some of her property then they could meet somewhere else for the exchange. The Boy's reaction to this edict is probably the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life. This adult male, when informed that he was not allowed at the apartment of someone he didn’t even like went running to his mommy. This mother, defending her poor little baby boy, informed me through Princess that I was no longer allowed at her house ever again. This is a house I've visited twice. Once to move her in, once to move her out. I would never again have a reason to go there. Moved to completely apoplexy from the absurd humour of it all, I did what any man would do. I quickly called my mother.

I begged, pleaded, and cajoled my mother to call his mother and let her know that she wasn't welcome at my parent's house ever again (a house she'd never been to in a city she'd never visit). My pleas fell on deaf ears. My mother saw the humour in it, but refused to feed this insanity. In retrospect that was probably the right decision.

My apartment is now filled to capacity with all of Princess' worldly possessions, as well as my own, and a shedding maniac. But we're still one character short of the opening paragraph aren't we? Let's fix that. See, it turns out there actually was someone waiting in the wings to steal Princess away from The Boy, it just wasn't me. It was a coworker of hers we'll call Whitney.

Now I want to be perfectly clear, at no point did Princess cheat on The Boy, or anything close to it. She's a fiercely moral being who wouldn't do anything like that. But the time between breaking up with The Boy and dating Whitney was very brief. He pursued her with a great deal of vigor, and she was shocked to remember what it felt like to actually like someone romantically.

So Whitney moved in too. Now Princess and I have never agreed on this point, so I'll leave it for you to decide. He had food in my fridge, clothes at my place, his guitar at my place, and spent the night at least 5 nights a week. While he may have been paying rent somewhere else, I say he was absolutely living at my place. And I tolerated all of this as well as I could, after all, she's my best friend, and she was in a rough spot. 

That's not to say that I was all super chill and laid back. There were times I would kick him out for a while, times where I'd ask them to go out for the evening and just let me have a few hours to myself. But by and large we muddled through. Eventually I had to make a new rule though. My lack of morning-person-ness was being set off every morning the second I stepped out of my room into an apartment filled with people. For everybody's sake I set a new rule that Whitney couldn't be there weekday mornings. Weekends were fine, I'm less grumpy when I get to sleep in, but during the week I just needed to see less people in the morning. Since I couldn't kick out the dog or The Princess, Whitney was picked.

What this rule was supposed to mean is that Whitney couldn't stay the night during the week. What it ended up meaning is that Princess set an alarm for about 30 minutes before my alarm would go off and either kick him out then, or have him hide on the balcony until I was gone. I'm a very light sleeper, so every morning her alarm would wake me up and I'd hear them say goodbye. But honestly, I was a little touched by how far they went to follow my asinine rules, so I never complained.

Eventually The Princess did get a job, and was able to move out. Very quickly my apartment was denuded of boxes, people, and canine hair. It was an amazing and blissful sort of feeling...for a couple weeks. Then I got lonely. Aren't humans weird? I was actually enjoying living on my own for the first time in my life, was actually upset to have my blissful solitude shattered to help out a friend, but by the time I got it back, I had already adjusted to this new crowded house of mine.

Both Foo-Foo and Girly

My father always had big dogs growing up. I'm going to guess there's not a whole lot of use for a lap dog on a farm. I mean, I could be wrong, maybe laps gets really cold during the winter and a Pomeranian is essential for proper warmth and blood flow throughout the lap area, but I'm guessing not. When they got married my mother voiced a desire for smaller dogs around the house. My father would have none of  that, his famous quote was I'm not getting a foo-foo girly dog. When a man plans, a woman laughs.

A couple years after I was adopted my parents began the parade of foo-foo girly dogs that would run for the rest of my life. All sorts of breeds and temperaments, some good, some definitely not. One particular Sheltie was so rambunctious and destructive around the house that he was actually sent to live on a farm somewhere. No really, my parents swear to this day it was an actual farm, not a euphemistic one. I even met the people who owned the farm....

Man I really hope that was a real farm he went to.

Playing around with all these various small dog breeds, I did eventually encounter the perfect breed for my personality. It is with some shame, and a fear of judgment, that I tell you that my ideal companion dog is a Pekinese Poodle. That's right, my dog is a Peekapoo. You want to make something of it?

Daisy