Week 7 story: A Charley Tells a Tale

A Charley Tells a Tale 

A Barrel of Monkeys

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There was once a Charley who needed to go out and buy milk for the apartment. He went up to his roommate Jacob and collected some of the money that he was owed. With money now in hand, he was off to get the milk.

Charley got home after going out and Jacob asked Charley where the milk was. Charley proceeded to tell Jacob a fantastical story of what went on after he had left to go buy milk. “So, I left the apartment, and as I was walking by the balcony, I noticed some money in the grass below. I thought how serendipitous, I can go get that money and buy more than just milk. I rushed downstairs as fast as I could in order to quickly seize the money. As I got closer, I realized that it was a twenty-dollar bill. That is enough to buy us a weeks’ worth of groceries!” This is when Jacob abruptly asked why I didn’t have any groceries then. Charley replied that he was getting there.

Charley continued with his story “So, when I grabbed the twenty-dollar bill, there was a small red monkey attached to the other end. The monkey said to me that he was there first and I should let go of the money. I promptly told him that it was mine, for I saw it first from atop the balcony. Me and the monkey got into a huge argument over this and he eventually struck a deal with me, he gets the money, but I in turn will receive a barrel filled with him and his friends. This seemed reasonable enough to me, so I let him keep the twenty, although, I am not sure what one monkey will do with that much money. So, that is how I lost the money, but he did keep up his end of the bargain and I got a barrel of monkeys.” Jacob, rolling his eyes a bit, asked Charley “OK, so then where are these monkeys?” Charley told Jacob that he was getting there, just wait.

Charley picked up where he left off “So, with a barrel of monkeys and still enough money for milk, I proceeded to the store. Along the way I fell into a giant pit. It was a long fall, but luckily there was water at the bottom, so I was okay. Getting out was the real worry, but luckily, I had the barrel of monkeys. The monkeys got out of their barrel and began to interlock arms. Once all of us had our arms linked to the others, we began the long climb out of the hole. It took us about an hour, but they successfully scaled the walls with me attached, so we were all able to escape. Sadly though, we left the barrel down in the pit, and you know how the saying goes, no barrel no monkeys. “Jacob asks, “You lost the monkeys then?” Charley is quick to shush Jacob telling him that he is getting there.

Charley continues on with his story “So, I lost the monkeys. It’s okay though, because while I was down in the well, I found a Starbucks gift card. I was needing some coffee after that whole hole incident, so I went to Starbucks. I ordered a dirty chai like usual, but they gave me a cup filled to the brim with gold instead. I was pretty certain that I probably shouldn’t drink it, but boy was I tempted. I went back up to the counter and ordered my drink again, but they wouldn’t accept the gold pieces and the gift card was empty, so I was out of luck. I sat down all sad and just slowly sipped on my drink… A kind man walked up to me and asked me what the matter was, so I told him the situation with the drink. He offered to buy me my drink in exchange for the gold inside of the cup. I gladly agreed to this, telling him that it didn’t taste that great anyway. So, in the end, I got my dirty chai.” Jacob raises an eyebrow and asks, “in the end?” Charley says to him “Yep, got my dirty chai in the end!”

Author’s Note: This story is derived from a Persian fairy tale called The City of Nothing-in-the-World. It is a crazy story about a girl who goes out to buy some ointment with a couple of eggs. The story takes one crazy impossible turn after the next. And the story all comes to a close by the girl saying that is how she found her knife. The ending was extremely abrupt and really had nothing to do with the story, but I liked it. I related with the girl, because I always come up with these crazy fantastical stories that I end up telling my roommate. I would very much rather tell a good story than a completely true story. Most of the stories I tell to people have many true elements, but are heavily embellished to the point where you know that a lot of it couldn’t feasibly happen. I was trying to give a general idea of how my stories tend to go while also vaguely using the source story as a guide, especially how the end and start don’t even slightly match up.

Story source: Persian Tales, translated by D.L.R. Lorimer and E.O. Lorimer and illustrated by Hilda Roberts (1919).