It was a sunny morning in Ton Sai Beach, Krabi, Thailand, 2003. The birds sang, the Andaman breeze blew its gentle perfumed air through the trees as I sat down to my morning banana pancake. Oblivious to the danger lurking above me. Watching. Waiting.
My girlfriend and I were on a yearlong rock climbing trip and, as I took my first few bites, we discussed our plans that day for climbing the sheer limestone walls lining the peninsula. Without a care in the world. Oh, to be so blissfully naive again.
On my third bite, it struck – moving silently along a nearby power line. With lust and hatred in its beady little eyes, it leapt from the line to the table and dove into the pancakes with those sweet, perfectly grilled banana slices nestled within.
It was the dreaded long-tailed macaque. That’s right. A monkey was stealing my pancakes.
It’s said that how we act in moments of crisis define us. I don’t know if that’s true. Some might call my actions that balmy morning heroic, but I’d like to think I did what any red-blooded, banana-loving tourist would do. I grabbed the butter knife and made several ferocious swings toward the monstrous hell-demon with naught but malice and bloodlust in its tiny heart.
Guys, this isn’t easy for me—please know that I’m quite conflicted over what I’m about to write. It goes against a big part of who I am. But judge me as you will. After years of hiding behind a gentle loves-all-animals exterior, it’s time for me to expose this personal inner truth.
I love that graduation speeches are now posted on the internet. Listening to them, the good ones, I can’t help but feel a little bit of that helium of opportunity and promise that I once had, in early summer, when I was the one who got to walk across the stage.
