Saturday evening, Jess accidentally knocked herself out on the pills her doctor had prescribed for some back pain she’d been having. That sneaky blinding pink “MAY CAUSE DROWSINESS” label on the pill bottle, slipped right past our noses (when’d that get there?) and without warning, Jess soon nodded off into a deep sleep that’d make Rip Van Winkle jealous. Our conversation leading up to the intoxicated moment went something like this: “You want to play a game?” “Sure…zzz…”

 If you don’t count the tv remote, it was good that Jess had refrained from operating heavy machinery. However, she did drive home on the stuff, and I half-wanted to check her car for dings, animal fur, or perhaps, an embedded lawn ornament.

Abandoned and left with nothing to do, I went right to work at mindlessly zoning out on random fixtures in the living room. When that grew tiring, I thought it might be good to check Jess’ pulse and wait for clear signs of breathing, just to be safe. I did the same with our dog, Phoebe, who lay beside her as though she, too, had gotten into Jess’ pills. The silent, sad walls of the house began to get to me, however, and though Jess and Pheobe snoozed away within arm’s length, they seemed a million miles away. Part of me couldn’t help but feel a little insulted that no one invited me to the 24 hour sleep-a-thon.

After an instance of self-pity, I adjusted to the realization that I should be happy because the night was mine to do whatever I pleased - as long as I did it very quietly, so not to wake the house. But the quiet was too much. For a split moment, I flashbacked to high school library. My chest tightened. I sensed that all too familiar pinned up adolescent rambunctousness. The urge to suddenly bust out laughing and wing paper wads at someone swept over me. Then the fear - I felt eyes on me. Mrs. Matthews was here, I knew it. Any second, she’d emerge from her hiding place, out of the deep dark shadows of the book shelves, and kick me out for another two weeks for being “too loud.”

At the risk of going completely insane with high school flashbacks and the maddening silence, I flipped on the tv. Jess was out for the night, anyway, no matter what ruckus I caused. Instinctively, I landed on the History Channel, which, to my delight, happened to be showing MonsterQuest, a documentary featuring daring scientists and cameramen tracking the jungles of developing countries, hot on the trail of the most notorious mythical creatures, such as the Lochness Monster, Big Foot, and Danny Devito. This noble expedition is done, of course, in the name of Science and, the less advertised, to get to the bottom of what the heck’s in the water that’s making the locals crazy.

But, if you ask me, I don’t think the locals are crazy at all. In fact, they are quite brilliant. What’s better to boost the economy of a poverty-stricken country than the monster tour biz? There’s always a market - man’s innate curiosity - and there’s practically no overhead, just a map and a perhaps a monkey in a mask.

And that may be precisely what we had on our hands here. This particular episode starred ”the real hobbit”, named after the loveable, tiny furry-footed creatures in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings novel triology. In short, the real hobbit is described as an orange-haired, three-to-four foot tall monkey-like creature with a human face (perhaps Gilbert Gottfried’s) whose favorite hide out is the thick jungles of Sumatra, Indonesia. According to eyewitnesses, it has the exact dimensions of the native orangutan - but that’s not what it is! Okay?!

Sometimes, I guess, this baby Chewbaca comes out and says hi to the villagers in his own special monkey-man sort of way by grabbing at roots and bolting up the overgrown side of the nearest dormant volcano when spotted. He’s not particularly violent or cheerful. In fact, the locals call him Orang Pendak, which means “we don’t know what he is or where he came from, but he’s very dull and could certainly use a shave.”

Before the expedition began, the scientists hired the local monster tourguide who had a booth set up right next to the “COCONUT DRINKS FOR 3 BANANAS OR TWO CHICKENS” stand guy. (By the looks of the place, I guessed barter system.) He didn’t speak a lick of English, but in his perfectly urban American translated voice, he went into wild detail about his confrontation with the real hobbit. Upon seeing him, the tourguide froze, he recalled. The real hobbit, probably startled by the monster tourguide bursting in on him in his jungle bathroom, did the only thing a real hobbit knows how: he grabbed at roots and made for the dead volcano.      

To my knowledge, no one’s actually ever held a conversation with the real hobbit. But the general consensus is that he is very intelligent. This was largely confirmed by the way the camera now and then panned in on the treetops, implying that the real hobbit could be cleverly hiding up there, watching (and eating popcorn) as his own search party stumbled through the jungle below calling out his name as if for a lost dog.

Turned out, after a half hour or so of watching these guys tromp around, stopping occasionally to comment on caches of animal dung, I realized the real hobbit was about as exciting as a hermit in need of a haircut. The Orang Pendak was rather a bore. I mean, he could have at least earned the reputation of raiding the village and terrorizing some chickens, or something. But he wouldn’t even give us this.  

To be honest, I didn’t stick around for the second half of MonsterQuest to find out if the scientists ever found him. Chances are they didn’t. Otherwise we’d have heard about it in the news by now, probably on E!, posing as Michael Jackson’s newest pet, or something. But if the scientists ever decide to go after it again, and they need something to slow the little guy down to make him an easier catch, I know where they can find some stuff that beats any tranquilizer out there on the market today.

“Right, Jess?”

“Zzz…” 

Categories: Mystery, Nature, Television, Travel