Chimp Empire

You like chimps. I like chimps.

Last night on TV, I watched a series about chimps called Chimp Empire. As a chimp aficionado, I couldn’t wait to watch this program as the description promised up close and personal footage of chimps getting up to all their usual chimpriffic activities in the wild. Naturally, I assumed the show would mostly feature chimps doing detective work, attending rollerskating parties, or directing traffic that exists entirely in their mind, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Instead the show consisted of footage of a troop* of chimpanzees sitting around in a forest in Uganda, one of their main hangouts.

I was surprised when the narrator mentioned that one of the chimps’ main past times is grooming each other. Considering the fact that most of these chimps had no qualms whatsoever about showcasing their butthole to pretty much any species, chimp or otherwise, that happened to be in the area, you’d think they wouldn’t be too caught up with looks but I guess, when it comes to chimps, grooming is job one. Even so, as much as I thought that was kind of weird at first, after watching the chimps groom each other for just a few minutes, it could not be denied- they looked amazing.

When the chimps weren’t busy grooming each, it turns out that they were mostly trying to decide who was their chimp leader and then, almost as important, who was best friends with the chimp leader. In fact, the more the narrator went on about it, it seemed like hanging out with a bunch of chimps is pretty much like being in a high school cafeteria only instead of sitting around eating sheet pizza with a bunch of acne-riddled teenagers, you’re just sitting in the dirt picking bugs out of each others’ hair with stunning results.

At one point during the program Chimp Empire, a bunch of other chimps showed up in the forest and the main chimp stars of the show got all pissed because, as the narrator put it, the new chimps were on their “turf.” At first, it seemed petty to get upset about that sort of thing, especially when the chimps have a whole forest to chimp it up in, but then I thought about when I was a kid and my friend Tommy had a huge back yard and all the other neighborhood kids would just show up to play whiffle ball without even asking. It was rude, especially considering they climbed the fence Tommy’s dad had just put in to do it. So when the main chimps chased the other chimps out of their area, I was like “Good- they should have asked first!”

A little later in the show, a bunch of monkeys started swinging from the trees above the chimps and I was relieved when the narrator said that the chimps didn’t view the monkeys as rivals.

“That’s nice,” I thought. “Maybe if the chimps and monkeys can get along, we all can get along.”

But then the narrator mentioned that the chimps view the monkeys as food and I knew things were about to take a dark turn. Sure enough, the chimps scampered up into the trees and started dragging fistfuls of monkeys back down to the ground, where they stuffed their chimp faces with monkey parts like they’d just hit a KFC drive-thru after a wild night on the town.

It’s weird how quickly your opinion about someone, even a chimp, can change after you’ve witnessed them eat an entire monkey right in front of you, but I tried to not let this affect my enjoyment of the show. Even so, just a few scenes later, when the chimps were all sitting around eating fruit, you could tell things weren’t quite the same anymore.

“Hey, are we not gonna talk about how we were literally stuffing our faces with fucking monkey like fifteen minutes ago?” the look on one of the chimps’ face seemed to say as he watched his chimp buddies gorge themselves on wild berries. But the other chimps didn’t even seem to notice.

I guess if there is anything to learn from this it is this- life can get pretty crazy sometimes, so much, in fact, that sometimes you end up eating an entire monkey just to break the day up a little bit, but the important thing to remember is you are with your friends and your looks incredible. And that’s what really matters.

*Named so because of the potential for dance.