Couldn’t Sleep

I couldn’t sleep last night. For some reason, I felt a sense of oppression, a sense of dread. The weather was fine, no ominous thunder clouds to make me worry. Nothing on the news aside from various budget cuts the governor had proposed. Those would worry someone. Not me. What was wrong? Why couldn’t I sleep?

Maybe it was the fifteen crispy cream donuts I had consumed along with two tall glasses of milk less than half an hour before midnight. Maybe it was the coffee I had nursed since eight pm that night. Or maybe I was just worried about nothing.

I had to get out, I needed to DO something.

But it was almost midnight.

I felt a grin creeping across my usually stoic countenance. That had to be the coffee. I don’t smile.

In a few seconds I had pulled my Gonga costume out of the closet and transformed. Now I was ready to brave the night.

The air was cool, with a hint of fall tingling my cheeks through the eye holes in the mask. For once, I appreciated the extra fur Gonga’s costume provided. I turned the corner on the street and headed onto campus.

Gonga’s night vision kicked into high gear as he peered down the street between the engineering buildings. The lamps lit up all but a few dark patches. And those dark patches are what interested Gonga. He prowled past the north west entrance to engineering building east (EBE) and squinted his eyes into the darkness.

A white gleam of stairway caught his attention. Gonga gave a little grunt of curiosity and hurried towards the stairway. As he got closer, his plasticized face displayed no emotion, but his steps became quicker. There was no chain blocking this metal stairway, not even a “keep off” sign, or yellow caution tape!

He began climbing, stealthily placing one foot above another.

Then he froze.

To be continued…

How To Not Get Hurt

As a general rule of thumb, you should never try to climb a building if there is a security guard walking around. Those guards really will try to stop you. Especially if there are chains on the gates you try to go over, or padlocks on the fire escapes you try to climb or yellow caution tape draped about the premises.

I speak from personal experience. Those guards really aren’t interested in protecting you. At first I thought that was their job. But I, Gonga, am a gorilla. And everyone knows that gorillas are capable of navigating heights fairly safely. The guard thought otherwise.

Another place to avoid is the stair wells in parking garages. Only if you are six four and over 250 pounds should you venture into those traps after two in the morning. Being Gonga, I can safely do such things. I just have to start one of my long winded gorilla howls, and perpetrators usually turn tail and run. Not sure if it’s the shock of seeing a gorilla in a parking garage stairwell after two in the morning or whether my yell is simply so deafening that they’re forced to retreat. At any rate.

Don’t go in a parking garage stairwell on your own early in the morning. Please. I don’t want to have to rescue you.

Another place to avoid is lecture halls in the middle of the lecture. No, I don’t mean skip class. But definitely avoid walking across stage by mistake. Especially if it’s an engineering class. And the professor is in a bad mood. And he happens to be teaching ballistics. And he brought his model trebuchet into class that day. No. I don’t want to talk about it.

And, as a side note. If you ever decide to have a note burning party…don’t try to do it in a bookstore. Even if you have a carefully insulated metal container and a filter rigged to that you don’t let any smoke escape. You may think your model incinerator is a feat of engineering brilliance. But don’t use it at the bookstore. Because I WON’T come rescue you. After all, you have to remember where I work.

Free Food

There are so many ways for an enterprising young gorilla to survive on less than a dollar a day on this wonderful campus. Not that Gonga actually makes less than a dollar a day, but he sends most of what he does make to his extended family. When you have four maiden Aunts and a half dozen nephews and nieces, besides your own brothers and sisters needing support, you become quite ingenious in ways to save money.

Hence Gonga’s perpetual search for the free lunch.

I know, you’re thinking, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Allow me to correct you. For Gonga, there is such a thing as a free lunch. He just has to look hard for it.

One prime way of sniffing out free food on campus is to hang out in Lowry Mall from around 11:00-1:00. If someone plans to give away food, they often do it in the heart of campus. Another good spot for handouts is Speaker’s Circle. On occasion various groups hand out everything from coffee to hot chocolate to sugar cookies and cupcakes.

Another method involves the use of Gonga’s campus e-mail account. Just like every other student, he receives the weekly MU Info announcement. Every week, he opens that e-mail, hits “Ctrl”+ “F” and searches for two words. The first word is “food,” and the second is “soda.” He carefully imprints the time and location of each event in his brain, knowing that one more meal will allow him to send just that much more home to his family.

And when all else fails, he goes dumpster diving.

At least, that’s the cover I display for Gonga. It helps to hide my identity. But my mission remains the same. To help all people, everywhere, for whatever reason. My goal is to prevent you from resorting to dumpster diving. I know textbooks cost a lot. But it’s still not worth it. Trust me on this one.

My Best Friend

I found out last week what “BFF” stands for. I had always wondered why girls would call each other BFF’s. My far too active imagination came up with many possible meanings, none of them flattering, and none fitting the personalities of the girls who made such brash statements.

Then someone told me. Best Friends Forever.

Oh. That sent my mind on another road trip. If so many people had wonderful BFF’s, who was my BFF? Obviously, this had very little to do with my current mission. But the current mission was going a little slow at the moment, so I allowed myself to be distracted.

It had to be someone I could respect, someone I could look up to, someone with more wisdom and intelligence than I. Someone I could rely on to be there when I needed him, through thick-and-thin, to the bitter end, and all that jazz. It took an arduous 120 seconds, but I think I finally found him.

You can see him in the picture above. My BFF. Thomas Jefferson.

Talk about a guy with intelligence! I mean, it takes a considerable amount of brain power to manage to get a hold of a piece of property as big as the Louisiana purchase. And without him, there would never have been the Morrill Act of 1862. And without the Morrill Act, there would never have been thousands of acres of land to be sold to fund higher education. What am I talking about? I’m talking about MIZZOU! Good ‘old M-I-Z Z-O-U rah!

Why do you think this place exists? Because Thomas Jefferson, my BFF, signed that treaty in 1803.

This guy has been my friend for 207 years. Talk about someone who sticks with you through thick and thin. He’s always sitting there on the quad, re-enacting that glorious moment who he signed my life in existence.

At least, my current mode of existence into existence. Because the university means classes, and classes mean textbooks, and textbooks mean jobs, which means existence.

Mirror Monologue

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”

That is something Gonga never says.

I tried it myself once, and the mirror cracked. That may have been because I decided to say it while testing the nail my roommate had inserted into the wall in my bedroom. The problem was that he had pushed the nail into the wall with his brass knuckles and neglected to locate a stud. Nails stay in drywall just fine on their own. But they don’t seem to handle the weight of a mirror very well.

“Who am I?”

I do look at the mirror and ask myself that. But I usually just get blank looks.

It’s easier for Gonga. He looks in the mirror and says, “I am Gonga, Gonga I am.” And the gorilla in the mirror grins back in a rare feat of triumph over his facial paralysis.

Gonga loves the way he looks. The idea of poor body image has never crossed his eyes. He especially loves the bright red of his T-shirt. If you ever see him walking through a glass door on campus, you’ll notice him pause and look at his reflection. The red always makes him happy.

This is good, because Gonga must stay happy. His bouncing good humor is an integral part of the cover I have so carefully constructed. The mirror gives me blank looks because I have carefully effaced my personality. Without Gonga I must be bland, flat, and unmemorable. Like a good spy, people should not recall what I look like.

I smile, but on the inside, where the mirror cannot see.

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who sells the cheapest books of all?”

If you give me a blank look, I will come after you, and you will not know I am there.

Summer Employment

After that last adventure in Mississippi I was ready to head back home and finish out a good summer of hard work. That is, if I could find a job. I mean, the whole Textbook Game gig was pretty good, but it wasn’t giving me quite the hours I had hoped for. They only wanted so much Gonga accordion playing each day. Without flyers and the rush of students to keep him busy, Gonga was getting bored. Gonga needed more work.

Gonga strolled casually down 8th street in downtown Columbia. The lunch crowd bustled about him making it’s way along the sidewalks to various restaurants. Gonga paused in front of Starbucks. What would it be like to serve coffee? he wondered. He ventured in and stood in line behind a short man with glasses. The air conditioning seeped through his fur as the line inched along.

Finally Gonga stood at the counter.

“What can I get you?” the barista asked, peering down at her register.

“A job,” Gonga grunted.

She looked up and laughed. “We’re not hiring right now, we have more people than we can use at the moment. I haven’t gotten the hours I was promised in three weeks.”

Gonga rubbed his fingers through his hair. Sand left over from the beech sprinkled out on the floor.

“Ugh,” the girl said. “Besides, you’d get sand and fur in the coffee! We can’t hire you.”

Gonga turned and shuffled mournfully out of the shop. He tried a few more restaurants along the street, but even at Lakota’s they told him the same thing. Too many employees. Not enough hours. And please move away, you’re getting sand in the coffee.

So that’s why people don’t go to the beach. Sand. Everywhere. Gonga paused on the street corner, waiting for the cross-walk to turn white. And I thought people would appreciate a little texture in their coffee.

Oh well, not much time left in the day for looking for jobs. The Textbook Game wanted Gonga and accordion to roam the streets of Columbia that night. Bright red t-shirt with white lettering, accordion pumping Russian like themes into the streets; Gonga would publicize his company for the world to see. Or at least, those parts of Columbia where people abstained from mixing sand with coffee.

Mississippi Salt

Sand crunched under Gonga’s fingernails as he scratched his head. The breeze skipped along the beach, spraying salty air into his face and making him sneeze. He took another couple steps and launched into a new accordion song.

Last night I called my buddy, asking him which apartment was his, then asking him to come out and show me where to park. I was hiding on the other side of the door when he came out of the house. I couldn’t resist. I knew it was stupid. I knew I would get pummeled. I simply underestimated the fear factor associated with my Gonga costume.

He must have jumped two feet in the air when I did my Gonga howl. He was six inches from vaulting over the railing before I stopped him from a concrete death. I hit him pretty hard. I mean, I had to save him from jumping!

I got knee to the mouth. Good thing Gonga didn’t try to add singing to his accordion act.

A group of children scuttled past as a distance, looking at Gonga curiously and then pausing to listen to the music. I nudged the big straw hat lying at my feet. A few stray dollars and random change lay on the inside.

“Can you play ‘Happy Birthday’?” a little girl in a bright pink swimsuit asked, pushing wispy black hair out of her face.

Gonga nodded, doing his best to smile. I winced, better let the mask do the smiling for today, I thought. That salt air was stinging.

The girl jumped up and down and clapped her hands as Gonga switched over to a raucous gypsy rendition of ‘Happy Birthday.’

“It’s my birthday!” she cried, capering around on the beach.

“Here honey,” a somewhat pink looking man came up and handed her a paper bill. “Give the gorilla something for playing your song for you.”

I watched appreciatively as she dropped the five into my hat. That was nice! If only more people understood how the traveling musician gig worked.

It took at least five minutes of explaining from a chokehold last night before my buddy finally realized who I was. He was pretty mad. When he finally let me in and I got my mask off, he calmed down some. The blood streaming out mouth and nose was pretty convincing. He gave me a cold pack and we sat up late talking.

Now we were both at work.

Him, in the office.

Me, on the beach.

I think I got the better end of the deal. Even if the Mississippi salt air did sting.