Sometimes, you just gotta be there.

On the night of February 12, 2007, while I was looking out at the back yard from our unoccupied third bedroom, I noticed a familiar cat strolling across the yard. Before I continue, you have to understand that cats are not kept as pets around here. All of them are wild and untamed. Of course, there's one cat that frequents our area on a regular basis and it must be suffering from brain damage. It pays no mind to people or other animals and gets beat up by other cats and animals all the time.

Anyway, I spotted the brain-damaged cat strolling across the yard. I then saw the cat freeze in its tracks. A monkey was in the yard and sitting perfectly still (I thought it was a bag or something that was left out). Then, all of a sudden, the monkey swung his right arm and smacked the cat's head. The cat took off in one direction and the monkey went the other. I'm pretty sure the cat startled the monkey. A familiar 1980s tune popped into my head, "Shock The Monkey by Peter Gabriel" (hence the reason for the title of this post).

I told my wife about it in the morning and she didn't believe it was a monkey because monkeys don't normally live around here. The jungle at Subic Bay is at least five kilometers from here, but there's a smaller, jungle-like area on the mountain above us. I don't care, I know what I saw. It was hilarious. (I found out later that one of my brothers-in-law had chased off a monkey, probably the same one.)

For those of you who are too young to remember, here's the music video of the 1982 "Shock The Monkey":