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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Guest post: Gorilla Greetings, part II

In the words of my father-in-law...

Last night, towards the late, late hour of 9:30, my family and I were peacefully relaxing from the stresses and strains of the day. The grandchildren were both asleep—finally. My son and daughter-in-law, Nancy, were working in their office upstairs. They were most grateful for the children who were sleeping.

Then came a knock at the door.

Typically, at night, it should be the husband’s task to answer the door. But, you need to know how my son’s brain works. He was so focused on his homework that I doubt he even heard the knock, nor did he notice when Nancy left the office to see who was coming to see us so late in the night. Now you may ask why I didn’t get the door. Well, my wife and I have been banished to the basement to accommodate my son’s young family, so it is rare that we can even hear a muffled knock on the door.

So abandoned by her husband and us, Nancy went to the door to see who had come a calling.

Being semi-responsible home owners, we have a peep hole in our door to give us the ability to determine whether the person knocking is worthy of us allowing them to breach our security. Nancy made sure to avail herself of the peep hole, but when she looked through, all she saw was blackness. Not like looking into the night sky blackness, but an odd, fuzzy type of blackness.

As she strained to attempt to make sense of this strange image, she heard some grunting. Clearly, there was someone on the other side of the door but the view through the peep hole did not enable her to get a clear idea of who it could be. So, being the brave person she is, she slowly opened the door to better determine this person’s identity.

To her shock and bewilderment, on the other side of the door stood an ape.

An ape!

This is not a common visitor at our home. Sure, there have been a few stray cats and dogs and an occasional mouse, but an ape?

As she quickly examined this simian visitor, trying to determine if she was going crazy, which happens after spending a day caring for two young children, or if there truly was a primate standing on our deck, she noticed the ape was holding a small stack of papers. This only augmented the surreal nature of this event. Nancy quickly focused on the papers and noticed one read “You are awesome.”

Hmm…this was no ordinary ape. Clearly, it had to be a BYU ape for the glory of God is intelligence…

Being a quick thinker, Nancy opened the door a little wider and asked the grunting gorilla if he were here to see the Bishop? I am not quite sure how she made the connection that a grunting, bouncing ape holding a “You are awesome” sign was obviously here to see me. But, she was right. (Don’t let her know that I said that.)

Nancy excused herself from the over-sized monkey and came downstairs to tell me that I may want to go to the front door. She did look a bit alarmed when she notified me I had a visitor, so I was a bit perplexed. My wife was also somewhat interested so she followed me upstairs.

As I came to the door, I noticed it was still closed. I thought that was odd that Nancy would answer the door and then shut it with the visitor still on the outside. But Nancy is Canadian. We are constantly learning that our neighbors to the north do things differently. So I opened the door…

Within nanoseconds I came face to face with an ape who handed me a stack of papers and started pounding me on my shoulders grunting with excitement. I must admit that I was not very prepared to be met by a gregarious gorilla at my front door. I guess my stunned expression and jaw dropped to the floor amused the ape and I sensed he was laughing at me as he gingerly made his way down the stairs of our deck.

This was definitely a strange night.

As the gorilla blindly made its way down the stairs, I noticed a group of people who were laughing hysterically at the bottom of our deck. Obviously we had been visited by the BYU 188th Ward FHE Ape. I have heard about this legendary creature, but assumed it belonged in the pantheon of other creatures of questionable origin such as Big Foot, the Abominable Snowman, and Jimmer Ferdette. I am [here] to testify that the ape is real. I have witnesses.

Does that also mean there is a Jimmer?

1 comment:

  1. Sorry Nancy, but Bro. Heiss' rendition had me laughing so hard I cried. I guess there must be a Jimmer, eh?

    ReplyDelete