Childhood Scars - Inspiration from Dark Places

That which does not destroy us, only makes us weirder.  Who said that?  When I was a kid we had a pet monkey named Gomer.  I think he was a Boomerang Monkey - because no matter how far we tossed him, he came back.  Cage and all reappeared on the porch and the squeal of escaping tires echoed from the distance.  It is cruel - just cruel, cruel, cruel to take any creature out of their natural habitat and inflict them with monkey ownership.  Most especially if the creatures are a lovely Bohemian lot and the monkey could effortlessly double the SAT score of the brightest among them.

The Bohemians have an identifying feature, akin to the Dark Mark in Harry Potter, but nothing so mundane as having evil incarnate force a tattoo on you.  Our mark (and I have one too, they always treated me like their own, including me in all rites of passage) is a scar.  Now these scars are in various locations.  Believe you me, you don't want to be the bouncer at the family reunion, verifying bloodline.  "Show me your scar."  No one wants to go there.  Let me just say the one thing I have told my children since childhood:  Never, and I repeat, NEVER, sit on a monkey's cage.

Looking back I doubt there was a single member of the family that didn't, at times, secretly wish for that monkey's demise.  Don't judge!  Have you seen their teeth?  Canine.  Have you lived with one?  Before he ended up with us he used to hang with the ferryman on the River Styx, but Charon couldn't take it anymore.  It's true, it was on his resume.  Past Employer:  Hades.  Those Bohemians had absolutely no prerequisites for membership.  Show up, they'd love you.  Those low standards kept Gomer alive, not that there weren't a few assassination attempts, but that happens in every family.