The Banana Was a Nice Touch

Let me paint the scene, as I am so adept at doing.

Friday. Halloween is tomorrow. My motley crew and I are packed like sardines into my tiny, white Ford Taurus. There are at least three things touching me that I wish weren't. We're driving away from school. The ability to drive to and from school is like being trapped on an island for a year with no proper socialization, given a boat, and then told to come back to the island for two more years at 8:00 AM each morning. I digress.

We're stuck in traffic because there is a holiday coming up soon and that gives everybody the excuse to drive like pumpkins. That was an allusion to Halloween festivities.

Recently, they built some new apartments on North Broadway to house the raucous college freshmen. They are drab, cookie cutter little things, identical right down to their tiny pseudo-balconies that are made from iron scraps and chewing gum. We drive past, although I wouldn't call it driving since I'm positive that we were passed by a few turtles.

All of the sudden, Rain is pointing out of the window as best she can given that her elbow is wedged up against three suitcases, a bag of food, and a giant sleeping bag. We all look over in time to see a gorilla standing nonchalantly on one of the balconies. He is wearing a hoody and has a banana clutched in his hairy paws.

This has special signifigance to everyone in the car, because we have our own gorilla costume that I will probably blog about later. I roll down the window so we can catcall this gorilla. He turns around and does a gorilla dance for us, his hairy mane waving in the wind like a glorious ebony flag. Traffic moves on but we continue screeching at him and he continues dancing. It is a pretty marvelous moment for all.

I imagine that it will be somewhat like this when they unfreeze Elvis.