Today at lunch, a friend was telling me about “helper monkeys” — little monkeys trained to do house chores — and his ne’er-do-well friend who wanted one. Frankly, I’d never heard of a helper monkey before, and I had to wonder if he was pulling my leg. After all, it sounded a bit too close to the apes trained (and retrained) at the simian reeducation center from Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (filmed at UC Irvine’s Social Sciences Tower). Then I came home and looked up “helper monkey” on the net. Besides the many tongue-in-cheek “helper monkey” sites, there’s an actual helpinghandsmonkeys.org:
Helping Hands is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for quadriplegic individuals by training capuchin monkeys to assist them with daily activities. [...] Our monkeys are affectionate, responsive friends whose companionship can brighten a disabled individual’s outlook on life, relieve hours of loneliness, and help him become more independent. Monkey helpers perform simple, every day tasks, such as getting something to eat or drink, retrieving dropped or out of reach items, assisting with audio cassettes, video cassettes, CDs, and books, [and] turning lights on or off.