So, a baboon escapes from a van while on his way to get a vasectomy.
That's almost as good an opening line as the one from the Best Joke Ever, which begins with "a guy walks into a bar with a frog on his head ..."
The difference, in this case and at least as far as we know, is that that baboon deal actually happened, though there may be places where people walk around with amphibians on their heads.
Anyway, it seems a 15-year-old male baboon and two females described as his wives (though they may have just been saying that so the families wouldn't be embarrassed) were on their way from the research facility to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, Australia, where the male was going to have what previous generations would politely refer to as a "procedure."
At some point in the trip, one of the animals managed to get the cage and truck doors open and the Great Ape Escape was on.
The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital is near the University of Sydney, so, chances are the escape wasn't the strangest thing happening in the area that day. But the sight of three baboons running amok around the grounds did cause something of a stir and numerous calls to local authorities and radio and TV stations.
Some of this, apparently, was because baboons have very distinctive coloration, specifically a certain redness in an area best observed while they are traveling away from you. I wouldn't mention it except lots of the callers did.
One more difference between us and Australians: While reporting wild, dangerous animals running loose in a city, I'm pretty sure the color of their ... you know ... isn't the thing I'd linger on.
When faced with the incident, the New South Wales Police released a statement on its Twitter account (always with the Twitter!) that they were aware of the animals, that "this is not a Mandrill" and that folks should let the police take care of things and not "Pry,mate."
Good to know that, when faced with an emergency, the New South Wales Police resort to that oldest of deadly weapons, the Dad Joke.
Seems the baboons were tracked down and captured in a carpark. However, we have questions.
For instance, what the heck is a carpark? I'm assuming it's what we who live in a part of the world where the water goes around the basin the correct way would call a garage. Though it could be a place where cars and, apparently, baboons go to play and get fresh air. Which is either a hellish nightmare or the plot of a Dr. Seuss book.
Then there is the matter of why the male baboon got so upset he felt the need to escape in the first place. Considering what was about to happen, you'd have thought they'd have gone over all this beforehand, explained the options to him and his spouses, maybe provided some brochures to take home and study. No videos, because, well, yeah.
There was, of course, uproar over this. Animal Rights activists wanted to know why the baboons, which had apparently had been bred at the research facility, were being kept there instead of released into the wild where they could sleep in the rain, forage for increasingly scarce food supplies and be hunted and killed horribly by larger apex predators, as nature had intended.
Residents were concerned that the animals escaped in the first place. And Bernie Sanders supporters pointed out that, because the procedure was going to take place in Australia, the baboon and his wives wouldn't be left with large medical bills. Though maybe the primate was upset because he'd been on a wait list.
Apparently all's well that ends well. The baboons were recaptured, the male had his operation and is now resting quietly on a sofa, holding a bag of frozen peas in his lap and telling stories about the time he and the Little Ladies got out for a bit in Sydney.
People got a good laugh out of it, which is increasingly valuable in these difficult times. And goes to illustrate the essence of humor -- an unexpected thing that takes place in the middle of a mundane activity.
Like that aforementioned "Best Joke Ever." A guy walks into a bar with a frog on his head. Bartender says, "Where'd you get that?" And the frog says, "I don't know, it started off as a wart on my navel. And did you see those baboons just run past here?"
Commentary on 03/06/2020