The Gorilla

OK, yeah, I admit it: I'm a Bloom County addict. I was reminded of all those archived cartoons when I saw a comment in another blog. So, I went to mycomicspage.com and enrolled. There is just so much that Bloom County still has to offer us, 25 years after it's inception. So, I think I'll be using these toons to illustrate my blog for a while. You can always click on the toon to read it better, by the way.

Sleep...Walking?

This is a post about The Other Half. I don't speak of him much, for various reasons. That doesn't mean he's not very interesting (as you will see). We happen to be semi-famous people that would rather remain obscure. Some people would never have heard of us, others would. The reason I write this blog is to reach out to like-minded people. I can't do that, and write honestly, if I don't remain relatively anonymous.

The Other Half is a very handsome guy. Sometimes breathless females will pull me aside and tell me he looks a lot like Mel Gibson. That is when I need to evaluate the situation and decide whether or not to tell them about The Gorilla. Kidding! I actually could never do that to him. At least not yet.

Anyway, what attracted me to him was not his looks. It is that he is very weird. I mean, there are plenty of adjectives that can be used to describe people like us: eccentric, interesting, amusing, etc. However, when you boil it all down it comes to weird.

I think the first time I realized I was madly in love with him was when I saw him do The Gorilla. He does an excellent gorilla imitation. I mean, Abbot and Costello would be envious. The really weird thing is that he does it in public sometimes. That is when I hope that no one who knows us is anywhere nearby.

He'll see a situation ripe for The Gorilla, and it's all over. For instance, a little old lady walking by and badgering her husband may end up stalked through the mall by The Gorilla. He'll sneak behind them, hunched over and hopping about, pretending to pick out lice, until they turn around. Then, he's just another shopper. One hopes his famous colleagues never catch a glimpse of this.

But The Other Half is a Sleep Walker / Talker (think Opus!) and finally took The Gorilla to another level a couple months ago.

I was sound asleep one night, when I was suddenly awakened by The Other Half looming over me, doing The Gorilla. It was complete with noise (you know: irritated monkey hoots) as he jumped about.

"What are you doing?" I asked, sleepily.

"I need a banana," he answered (silly me!). He then climbed out of bed, and wandered down the hall into the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door open and close, and soon he came padding back, still hooting softly. He lept back onto the bed again.

"Honey," I repeated more strongly now, "What are you doing?"

"I went looking for a banana, but there aren't any," he said in a wounded tone of voice. Then he rolled over and went back to sleep.

The next morning when we woke up, he rolled over and said "You know, hon, I had the strangest dream...!"

"Dream?" I said, slightly annoyed, "It's a good thing you didn't trample me! And next time you go looking for bananas, you might remember we don't keep them in the fridge!" There's no reasoning with gorillas, though.

I am loyal to a point, but the story was too golden to keep entirely silent about. My closest friends know this one. I had to tell! Wouldn't you?