Democratic monkeys will send us to the glue factory, y’all!

DISCLAIMER: This is a satirical piece. It does not necessarily represent the views of the Exponent or its writers and should not be construed as truth.

Chaos ensued on Friday, March 22 when MSU’s long-suffering Rhesus monkeys escaped the underground lab beneath Lindley Hall, wreaking havoc on the city. 

The monkey experiments have long been a point of contention for the university. In 2021, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle (BDC) reported that the university was issued a citation by the USDA “for an incident in Oct. 2020 that resulted in an injured monkey.” Another report from the BDC outlined experimentation that involved “drilling holes in the skulls of Rhesus monkeys […] and poking electrodes into their brains” to further neuroscientific research.  

 In recent years, the lab has cracked down on information leaks by having its researchers sign nondisclosure agreements before they are given access to the lab, leaving the continued nature of their experimentation in a shroud of mystery — until now.

 Early Friday morning, freshman Vivienne Scimitar, caught the blue line bus from Wilson to MSU’s campus. Tired from a late night of studying, she failed to take notice of who was sitting behind the wheel that day. “I found a seat and leaned my head against the window. I started to doze off as we pulled away from the curb, thinking I’ll catch a nap on the way there when I start hearing car horns and screeching tires and the driver yelling like a maniac.  I looked up and we’re on the wrong side of the road! I shouted at the driver to let me off and a monkey looks back and shrieks at me! I thought I was gonna die.” 

Scimitar made it to campus safely, but not before bargaining her lunch to get the monkey to open the bus’s doors.

 Jibril Ergonomic, a graduate student in marine biology studying the effects of Viagra on guppies, shared a similarly bizarre experience when one of the monkeys was found bartending at the Haufbrau. He told Excrement reporters, “It didn’t matter what you asked for, that monkey only knew how to make martinis — and they were some damn good martinis. He didn’t charge for them either. Everyone in there told everyone they knew, who told everyone they knew and so on until there wasn’t enough space inside and people started drinking in the parking lot. When bands started showing up for open mic night, they couldn’t get inside, so we ran extension cords to the roof and they took turns playing up there. It was awesome.”

 Festivities were interrupted when someone contacted the police to report incidents of monkey shenanigans. Minutes later, a Bozeman Police Department (BPD) squad car slammed into the side of the Molly Brown, sending many partygoers on the run. Those who stayed, however, watched as another monkey stumbled out of the squad car’s driver seat wearing a duty belt with pistol and cuffs, sunglasses and fake mustache, sucking on a breathalyzer like a pacifier. The cop monkey was given a martini and the party continued undisturbed until the early hours of Saturday morning.    

 When asked what the city plans to do about the monkeys, Bozeman Mayor Berry Cummingham responded, “This is some real Planet of the Apes sh*t, people. Soon they’ll be hunting us for sport. We gotta nip this in the bud before they learn to ride horses and talk like Paul Giamatti and the Statue of Liberty loses her head.” 

After his interview Cummingham declared a state of emergency in the city of Bozeman and asked the governor’s office to deploy the National Guard. The BPD, on the other hand, have taken a liking to their newest simian recruit, who will be sworn in on Monday as Bozeman’s first non-K9 drug narc.

Sergeant Broki of the BPD described the monkey as a great guy to get a beer with. “We’ve loved our new ape partners, they’ve added fresh ideas and a new energy to the force, not to mention they can outdrink any recruit in town,” Broki said. 

 Since Friday’s jailbreak, students, faculty and others in Bozeman who have observed the monkeys’ citywide takeover have speculated on the researcher’s motives and what experiments were conducted in the monkey lab before the escape.

 “Those monkeys are funded by Democrats; they’re training primates to take our jobs so they don’t have to pay anyone,” Dean John Porksnatch, who asked that his name be changed for security reasons, told Excrement reporters. “Once those monkeys are perfected and can take over all the working man’s jobs, Biden’s gonna send us all to the glue factory.” 

Others were more optimistic about the experiments’ goals, such as Juliana Amanita, a surgeon at Bozeman Deaconess. “One of them critters performed the most professional open heart surgery I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been doing this for over two decades. Only problem was, the patient’s heart was fine: she just had a broken leg. They’re doing good things — or at least, doing their best to do good things — they’re just a little misguided. Undercooked, you could say.” 

The cause of the monkey’s escape from the underground lab is unknown, though some are beginning to speculate that one of the monkeys was being trained as a locksmith and worked his magic on the lab doors the day of the escape.

 On Tuesday, March 26, Calcutta Horkheim, a professor of ethnomusicology, watched in horror as a cohort of three monkeys dragged MSU’s President, Zabadido Du Pointe, into the lab under Lindley and barricaded the doors. It’s unclear what the monkeys want with Du Pointe, but the kidnapping has fueled rumors that the monkeys may eventually seek revenge for the mistreatment they faced in the lab. 

BPD is currently negotiating the hostage situation with their newest recruit, whose firearm was confiscated after responding to a house fire by discharging several rounds in the blaze. Luckily, no one was inside.

 Late Tuesday afternoon, the Blue Line bus was seen driving down the wrong side of the I-90 towards Butte with a cab full of other monkeys. Butte officials have yet to respond.