It only took Ivan Gorrilavich one minute in his new habitat to get himself into trouble. The first people through the door was a young couple. The girl seemed okay. It was the guy who was a twit. While the girl was content to look at Ivan and, perhaps, make comparisons, the guy was making faces. Ivan hated that nonsense. He jumped up and slammed against the glass.

The girl was smart and ran. The guy was to terrified to move except for his bowels. Ivan hated that too. Made the place smell like a sewer instead of a zoo. While the maintenance guys were cleaning up, Ivan waited for the lecture. The Simian Area would be closed for a while and that upset the managers. Ivan figured they try to give him a mild tranquilizer to calm him down. Ivan would rather have a beer. No, a six-pack.

Ivan had stolen the key to his area by this time. He wasn't going to stay locked up at night. His entrance to the corridor was a concrete room with some hay thrown down. The zoo folks called it "his nest". Ivan thought of it as a room with some hay thrown down. He wasn't sleeping there.

Ivan slept in the directors office. He liked the couch. He broke it the first night. The director said it was broken and "stunk". He bought a new one. It was strong enough that Ivan could sleep without hearing it crack as it broke. It was comfortable. The director said it also "stunk". He decided that since he wasn't going to sit in it that it didn't matter. He'd just spray something on it and let it be.

Ivan got frustrated with the door to the liquor cabinet. He could have broken it off but that might be suspicious. He pulled the door by it's hinges until the screws came out. Ivan took a bottle and then pounded the door back in place. The director meant to get the loose hinges fixed one of these days.

Ivan got up when he heard people moving around. He'd sneak back to his area and kick the hay around a little. No one was the wiser. He'd wait for the banana man to come around. That was Ivan's nickname for the guy who brought the day's food. Banana man. What kind of guy does this for a living? Ivan felt so sorry for the sap that he wouldn't even threaten the guy. The guy looked like he'd been threatened enough by life itself.

Most of the visitors, except for kids, were alright, They'd stare but that was all. The kids were a pain in the butt. They'd bang on the glass. Ivan started each day with a hangover and these kids weren't helping any. Ivan needed to get a hold of an ice pack. That would do the trick. He wouldn't be able to explain it but, as an ape, he didn't have too. It would just be one of those mysteries in life.

Nothing seemed to embarrass humans either. They'd wear clothes to cover up and then wear them in a way to show as much as possible and still be dressed. That made no sense to Ivan. If you're going to go naked then go naked. You're born naked. That doesn't seem to bother anyone. Another human quirk, Ivan supposed.

They grew hair and cut it off in some places. What was that all about? They'd paint pictures on themselves. They'd cut their noses to make them look different. Not better, just different. If Ivan ever did half the things humans did they'd put him to sleep.

Ivan's real complaint about the place was his mate. He would never have chosen her. That's a hard fact. Not only did she always have a headache but she was ugly. How could she have a headache when she didn't drink? She was just as ugly when Ivan was drunk as when he wasn't. The idea that she might find him repellent didn't occur to him. All Ivan knew was that he was probably no worse off than that guy from the first day. That girl would always picture that "accident". Not exactly a turn on. Well, with humans you never knew.

Ivan's theory was that he didn't ask to be here so to heck with everything. He couldn't for the life of him figure out how humans ended up at the top of the totem pole. They were just puny, weak, emotional things. If apes had bothered to learn to talk, well, things would have been a lot different. Maybe the humans would like to be placed on display. Actually they did as far as Ivan could tell from watching tv. He saw things they did that would embarrass an ape. A monkey, no. Nothing embarrassed them.