Monkey Business

Today on CNN, I saw a restaurant in northern Tokyo that's using monkeys as servers. They’ve been a huge hit with customers and, as one patron puts it, “they’re better waiters than some really bad human ones.” Since animal rights laws allow the two monkeys to work just two hours a day, the owner is training three new baby monkeys to join the staff. Actually, monkey workers might be a perfect solution for bar and café owners throughout France who, according to a story in yesterday’s New York Times, are having a terrible time staying afloat. It seems that the bad economy, high costs, drunk-driving crackdowns and smoking bans have put many French cafes in financial peril. I say employing monkeys as waiters here in Provence would save on payroll and provide a spot of entertainment as well. (Plus, they can’t sue for back wages, claim sexual harassment, go on strike or steal your recipes.) To see the monkeys do their thing, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeSQ5Rv7eH8
or here: http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/11/23/lah.jap.monkey.biz.cnn.
To read the piece in the Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/world/europe/23cafe.html?pagewanted=1&emc=eta1