Friday, May 23, 2008

No Monkeys in the House

In the interest of making every day my lucky day, I've been doing some research into superstitions about luck. Some of them are truly funny--I'll save them for future posts--and some of them are truly interesting. One of them, however, has me totally confused. Apparently in Brunei it is widely considered to be bad luck to have monkeys in your house. What I can't find, though, is whether this applies to only live monkeys--which pretty much makes sense to me--or if it also applies to images of monkeys. Are stuffed toy monkeys okay? And what about sock monkeys? Monkey-patterned blankets? Do we need to completely redecorate? (Just kidding, I don't think we have a single monkey-related item here.) Is it safe to wear jewelry with images of monkeys? Apart from possible damage to your stuff, why is it bad luck to have monkeys in your house? Does this superstition carry over to other countries, or is it only in Brunei? I have so many questions that I can't answer, and I'm hoping that at least one of you can help clue me in.