The Popcorn Stand: Punished for literally monkeying around

We all have sayings “so easy even a monkey can do it” or “stop monkeying around.”

Lengendary Oklahoma football coach Bud Wilkinson was big on repetition, stating once he could “teach a monkey to type.”

I remember an episode of “Cheers” in which Norm when he was working as a painter and Cliff the mailman got into about whose job was more degrading. Norm ended up sending a chimp with a mailbag into the bar to show even a monkey could do Cliff’s job.

I’m not one for putting down anyone who works for a living — no matter what job you do you should be treated with dignity and be able to take pride in what you do. But a bus driver in India evidently decided to show a monkey could do his job while literally monkeying around at the same time.

The video of a bus driver smiling and petting the monkey as it sat on top of the wheel of the moving bus has gone viral.

India’s Road and Transport Corporation didn’t find the video too funny and suspended the bus driver. There were 30 passengers on the bus and they didn’t seem to mind. The monkey boarded the bus with a passenger and was at the wheel for almost 10 minutes.

State officials say they are investigating. Investigating what? A monkey was on the steering wheel of a moving bus for almost 10 minutes. What’s there to investigate? Is the passenger who brought the monkey onto the bus going to be called as a character witness?

When it comes to officials investigating what happened, it all just sounds like a bunch of monkey business to me.

— Charles Whisnand