Mike Oliveri

I took my family to the Peoria Zoo on Monday, and they had more animals than I expected, including a couple of mandrills. If you’re not familiar, think “evil monkey with the colorful face and ass” and you’ve got the idea. Given that description, I just had to see the guy in action.

Imagine my disappointment when I found him scratching his balls.

No, really. The male sat a few feet behind the fence, legs spread wide, playing with his balls and grooming the fur on his inner thighs. A crowd gathered around and I made a few noises to get his attention to take a picture. At first, no luck. I clicked off a shot, typed up my caption and fired it off.

Then I looked up and found him staring right at me, and punching the ground to intimidate me.

"Wanna go, bitch?"

The people near me backed away, and the Wife just shook her head, thinking “Now what’d you do?”

I had to be careful here. Sure, there’s a fence in the way, but have you ever seen an angry mandrill?

Check it:

"I will cut you!"

Wait, that ain’t right. That’s a pic from his misspent youth.

No, when a mandrill gets pissed, it’s a lot scarier.

When he started punching the ground and grunting at me, I was afraid this was coming next:

OH MY GOD HIDE THE CHILDREN WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!

So, yeah. From ball-scratching boredom to tear-your-face-off anger in seconds. Evil monkey.

Though I can’t blame him. I’d be sensitive, too, if it looked like someone tried to ram a rainbow up my ass.

Taste the rainbow!

About Mike Oliveri

Mike Oliveri is a writer, martial artist, cigar aficionado, motorcyclist, and family man, but not necessarily in that order. He is currently hard at work on the werewolf noir series The Pack for Evileye Books.

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