Gender-Neutral Monkey

some of my faithful readers will know exactly what i'm talking about when i utter the words "gender-neutral monkey". others will stare quizzically at the heading, and then slowly develop a glaze over their eyes and shake their heads in bewilderment as they 'x' out the window and go instead to spiffy websites like youtube, or homestarruner.com. however, i implore those of the latter sect, don't go!! the gender-neutral monkey surely is a thing of rare and natural beauty, in it's own silent, pink-and-yellow way. the gender-neutral monkey is an object that has received much love and affection from both yours truly and several generations before me.
to fully appreciate the gender-neutral monkey, one must first understand what it looks like. formerly known as alice, this small stuffed monkey has small black eyes, inset in a delicately seamed yellow fabric. sadly, this monkey has been so well loved, that the yellow is not really so yellow anymore, but more of a golden brown. moving right down, it has a squat neck firmly placed on an entirely magenta colored body. it's small feet and hands are yellow, and it's tail has been resewed back onto its body several times, as it's been used for activities that i shall soon describe.
as a small child, i loved using this monkey for various positions. i had first dubbed it 'alice' as my favorite movie at the time was 'alice in wonderland'. however, as my games in which the monkey was always a lead role went on, i realized the usefullness of having an interchangeably male or female character. so, the name alice went flying off into the trash, and i instead just called it 'monkey' for a long period of time.
this name worked quite well for a long while, but as i grew into my young teens, i realized that 'monkey' just wasn't cutting it for this dear little pal that had been so faithful to me all these years. what it needed was an epic title. thus, the cognomen 'gender-neutral monkey' was born.
ah, i promised to enlighten you all as to the fact of why its tail had to be resewn on multiple times, didn't i? well, here's the story. or stories.. not sure how much of my childhood i want to divulge here...
as a child, i had sleepovers. they were fun, innocent get togethers, a bunch of giggling girls, staying up later talking about guys, and things like that, right? not so, my dear readers. at my sleepovers, someone would inevitably find the gender-neutral monkey and begin whapping anyone that was not fully shielded by her pillow. sadly, for my poor monkey, the main handle would be its tail, so after a few dozen sleepovers, the tail would begin to break right off its poor mutilated body.
i have finally retired the gender-neutral monkey from its position of lead role in games, being the official sledgehammer in sleepovers, and its various other duties it performed for me over the years.
party hearty my dearies

~M.R.P.