The gorillas were gambling, I was sure of it. I wasn't sure of the rules of their game, but the rhythms of toss, wait, pay were clear. I told Dr. Martin of my discovery, but he didn't believe me. "
"Gorillas," he said, speaking as one would to well-meaning mongoloid, "do not gamble. They lack the mental acuity."
The gorillas, though, were gambling. In the course of my observation I noticed at least three different games. One involved throwing rocks in the air and seeing where they landed on a grid. A second involved, as near as I could tell, some sort of betting around pools of water. The third, though, was clearly a variant of craps.
On the last day of my internship at the institute, I unlocked the door to the gorilla enclosure, carrying with me two oversized dice. I attempted to insert myself in their craps-like game, in order to show them how to play the human version.
They broke both my arms and stole my dice. I am, it seems, the first person to run afoul of gorilla etiquette.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment