“Once upon a time, I worked in law enforcement. Did it for about 10 years. Spent about a year or so in criminal investigations, working ‘special victim’ type of cases (assaults, molestations, child and elder abuse, neglect, domestic violence, internet crimes against children – working with the state task force, and missing and endangered persons). One day, me and my partner were working on a case of mine about possible child abuse reported by a school. I don’t remember the specifics, but I believe it ended up being unfounded – the kid was upset that his Xbox was locked away after doing something, and told the school counselor he was being beaten. I spent a month doing random checkups at the school and at home, never found anything out of the ordinary.
Anyway, one Saturday, the first time I and my partner stopped by to meet with the family we got a surprise. The place I worked during this time was pretty rural, fairly low income, in BFE in the southern US. We are sitting at the table, kids are playing Xbox again (grounding was over so he got it back), chit-chatting, I’m facing the living room, and my partner sort of has her back to it. Suddenly I see a brown and black furry creature about the size of a cat go galloping past…but it wasn’t a cat, that I was sure of.
My partner notices that I seem bewildered and asks if I’m okay.
‘Yeah…uh…I’m gonna be honest with you man, I think I just saw a friggin’ monkey…’
‘Oh, that’s just Jerry!’ The mom says and gets up to go collect ‘Jerry.’
Sure as heck, they’ve got a flippin’ monkey. They had a larger-sized house that allowed for Jerry to have a room all to himself, complete with a jungle gym and a hammock thing hanging in the corner to sleep in.
I got to hold Jerry (well he kind of hung onto my arm for a minute or two like it was a tree branch). Apparently, they poop wherever they feel like and can be a bit bitey. The mom said they’re more trouble than they’re worth.
I asked my supervisor later on if I should look into how they got it or consult with a friend of mine who worked for the state’s Wildlife and natural resources enforcement, but was told not to push the issue unless we needed to down the road. So I and Jerry got to be bros for a few weeks whenever I stopped by, and by bros I mean he was a huge prick.”
