One evening last week, I read something about a research study done on rhesus macaques. The gist of the study was this: they put a bunch of macaques in a couple of cages, and let the macaques in one cage drink as much booze as they wanted, and in the other cage, the macaques just got sugar water. Then the researches gave the macaques a vaccine and measured how well their bodies responded to the vaccine. Turns out the moderate drinking monkeys had the best immune system response, followed by the non drinkers, with the very drunk macaques having the worst response.

Right after I read about the study, I went to bed, where The Hubs was already settled for the night. He was just about to drift off to sleep when I said to him, “I just read about the most amazing research study involving booze and monkeys.”

Now, for those of you who don’t know, The Hubs has a thing about monkeys. Like, he convinced The Boy that there is a monkey living up his nose. He once told my nephew to tell my sister that he wanted monkey brains for dinner. (She was making mac and cheese. Which kind of looks like chopped up monkey brains. Which freaked out my nephew, who was like 4 at the time. It wasn’t pretty.) So, I should have realized that when I said “booze” and “monkey” in the same sentence, that The Hubs would not be getting any sleep that night.

The conversation went something like this:

“Did you say booze and monkeys?”

“Yeah, they locked some rhesus macaques in a cage and let them drink as much as they wanted. Some of them were moderate drinkers and others were just drunk for like the whole time they were in the cage. They had a control cage too, where they just got sugar water. Turns out the moderate drinking macaques had the best immune system response to the vaccine they gave them.”

“Oh my god, that is the most awesome thing I’ve ever heard of. Except for the poor sober macaques. How drunk are we talking?”

“I don’t know, pretty drunk, I guess.”

“Dude, I have to know more about this. Imagine writing the grant proposal: ‘I’m gonna get some monkeys, and lock them in a cage with some booze, and just let them get shitfaced.'”

“I feel like Shitfaced Macaques would be a great name for a band.”

“What kind of band?”

“Well, there were 6 monkeys in the booze cage, so I’m gonna go with 6 band members. It sounds like a blue grass band to me, don’t you think?”

“So guitar, base, drums, what else?”

“Jug, Autoharp, and singer.”

“How long were they in the cage?”

“Several months, let me look up the article…ah yes, 14 months.”

“SHUT UP. They were just drunk in a cage for 14 months?!?!”

“Yep, the moderate drinkers had a blood alcohol level of .02 on average, and the drunk monkeys averaged above a .08.”

“AVERAGED ABOVE A .08?!?! For 14 whole months?!?! How much above?!?!”

“It doesn’t say.”

“What kind of booze?”

“Ethanol. Blech. That makes me sad. It should have been rum at least. Although, I guess ethanol ”

“Who paid for this study?”

“I would have guessed some sort of booze industry association, but it says here it was funded with an NIH grant. Wait, 2 NIH grants.”

“That is the best use of my tax dollars I’ve ever heard of.”

The conversation went on like that for like an hour, much of which The Hubs was laughing so hard he was crying. And then he said, “How will I ever get to sleep now? I can’t stop thinking about those poor sober monkeys in the booze-free cage.”

The next morning, The Hubs looked at me with his exhausted bleary eyes, and said, “Shitfaced macaques.”