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How the TSA Plans On Inspecting Your Monkey 114

Posted by samzenpus from the I'm-gonna-need-to-check-your-monkey dept.
The uncertainty of what might happen to your service monkey at an airport security checkpoint won't keep you awake at night anymore, thanks to the TSA. They have issued an easy to follow list of how they will ensure your helper monkey won't go all Planet of the Apes on your flight. Some of the security techniques used to make sure your primate is not a terrorist include: "Security Officers will conduct a visual inspection on the service monkey and will coach the handler on how to hold the monkey during the visual inspection. The inspection process may require that the handler to take off the monkey's diaper as part of the visual inspection."

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How the TSA Plans On Inspecting Your Monkey

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  • Now's the time on Sprockets when we dahnce (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 25, 2010 @02:29PM (#31614874)
    Touch it! Touch the monkey!

  • Considering the last article was submitted by superapecommando, I can't blame them.

  • Touch my monkey!
    Touch him!

    Sorry, that's what first popped into my head.

    • Quite the opposite, actually:

      Security Officers have been trained to not touch the service monkey during the screening process.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Em Emalb ( 452530 )

      I'll admit it, I only ever watched Sprockets for the dancing.

      "And now is the part of the show where we dance"

      • LOL! I need to drag out my old VHS tapes of SNL... ..and then find a VHS player.

        Maybe I'll just go to youtube instead.

  • Take off the monkey's diaper as part of inspection (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 25, 2010 @02:32PM (#31614936)

    There is actually 1.75 trillion dollar roll out of monkey-sized body scanners. When the project is finished, you will no longer be required to remove your animal's diaper, but technicians may laugh at your monkey's banana.

  • oblig (Score:1, Troll)

    by quantumplacet ( 1195335 )

    oh, i can't wait to eat that monkey

    (alternatively: PRAY..FOR...MOJO...)

  • That's not unusual. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rene S. Hollan ( 1943 ) on Thursday March 25, 2010 @02:32PM (#31614942)

    When I traveled between the U.S. and Canada, it was typical for me to remove pet cat and guinea pig from carriers and carry them by hand through the metal detectors. Surprisingly, the cat had greater veterinary bill of health requirements than the guinea pig.

    • Surprisingly, the cat had greater veterinary bill of health requirements than the guinea pig.

      Not so surprising, as a cat can and will eat birds, rats, etc., and thus is far more likely to be exposed to disease.

      A veterinarian friend once told us that, wherever we go in the world and whatever local food we eat, never ever try to eat a cat (domestic or tiger/lion/etc.). They are filthy animals.

      And yes I sleep with three indoor-only cats snuggling me at night. And yet I wash my hands after touching our hedgehog.

      • Living with cats can cause problems. http://www.damninteresting.com/parasites-on-the-brain [damninteresting.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by v1 ( 525388 )

        They are filthy animals.

        They by themselves are quite clean, you don't have to bathe them anywhere near as often as a guinea pig or dog for example.

        Problem is, they are scavengers, a bit like a ground vulture. In the wild they'll eat anything they can catch or steal/find. They have a stomach to eat rotten nasty things and not get sick, but if you happen to get some of that it'll make you ill quick. Domestic indoor cats of course don't have that issue. A guinea pig for example, is a vegetarian iirc?

        • A guinea pig for example, is a vegetarian iirc?

          Typically yes, but if they go carnivore on you it is scary as Hell. Do NOT miss two feedings in a row.

          • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

            by v1 ( 525388 )

            and I suppose it goes without saying, don't feed them after midnight or it really gets scary?

            • Yes. And you don't want to be anywhere near them at bath time, either. I'm still paying the therapy bills for that one.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by v1 ( 525388 )

                I can't imagine a guinea pig being harder to bathe than a typical cat - smaller teeth, smaller claws, not as strong, no bred-in fear of water.

                My cats on the other hand, come in the shower with me. But that's something you need to start really early with them, and keep up. I can just picture trying to bathe a guinea pig... get a shower with glass doors. fill it up with a couple inches of water and the shower head on. Walk into the bathroom and just toss them up over the glass. Watch them ricochet repea

          • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

            by AuMatar ( 183847 )

            Two in a row? With my last set if you were 5 minutes late for the first feeding they'd all be standing at the food bowl noses in the air and giving you despairing looks. I can't imagine the drama level at 2.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 )

      When I travelled through Canada to get to Alaska we took our pets. The two cats were easy, vet paperwork saying they didn't have rabies and had shots etc.

      We also have three reptiles, a Green Iguana who is 15 years old, a Central Inland Bearded Dragon and a Saharan Uromastyx (orange). I looked up the rules on taking exotics into Canada and there is some conflicting information.

      http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/imp/petani/amphe.shtml [inspection.gc.ca] and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency told me -
      "Reptiles do not re

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Xest ( 935314 )

        I cultivate rare and endagered plants, to try and reduce the strain on habitat populations from poaching, or to assist in ensuring we have a healthily sized pool of genetically pure reserve specimens. Part the problem of ex-situ conservation efforts in the past is that they've involved only cultivating a few specific individuals of a species that was likely to go extinct in habitat but could be reintroduced, when you only have a few then you don't have enough genetic variation to ensure a viable population

  • But.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Thursday March 25, 2010 @02:32PM (#31614944)
    Will they spank my monkey if he misbehaves? Or will I need to do that myself?

    • Will they spank my monkey if he misbehaves? Or will I need to do that myself?

      It's not illegal, it's just frowned upon. Like masturbating in an airplane.

    • No, but they will shock the monkey. They carry tasers, right?

      • shocky monkeys are awesome. Its nice to see that Our Tax money is going somewhere other than the current massive boondoggle.

  • wtf? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Pharmboy ( 216950 )

    What has this, or half the articles on the front page lately, have to do with "News for Nerds"? Has the tech world suddenly gotten so boring that Slashdot is reduced to publishing stories about "Service Monkeys"?

    • what nerd doesnt want a service monkey? hell, it sounds like a pretty cool idea to me..

      seriously though, i didnt know people had actual service monkeys, what do those monkeys do? What physical handicap do they make up for? Over here i've heard off (and seen) helper dogs, but never monkeys..

      but yeah, this doesnt really belong on /.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Thud457 ( 234763 )
        obviously, service monkeys are important for people physically incapable of flinging their own poo.
    • Well this is like the only funny idle article I have ever seen, so I think you and your monkey might want to chill and have banana and a PB&J. [youtube.com]

    • What has this, or half the articles on the front page lately, have to do with "News for Nerds"? Has the tech world suddenly gotten so boring that Slashdot is reduced to publishing stories about "Service Monkeys"?

      The "Planet of the Apes" book and movies are pretty popular among nerds. The concept of a "service monkey" would naturally seem to have a certain level of interest among the slashdot community. ;-)

    • What has this, or half the articles on the front page lately, have to do with "News for Nerds"? Has the tech world suddenly gotten so boring that Slashdot is reduced to publishing stories about "Service Monkeys"?

      It's samzenpus. And it is only samzenpus. He only posts "idle" articles. Sometimes he posts them in "idle" (he did one earlier today), but most often he posts them in other sections -- even though they are always idle-quality articles.

      Taco, really... enough is enough -- give smazenpus his own s

      • I just went into my preferences and chose to exclude samzenpus. Not sure if that excludes him from RSS, but I generally don't use RSS anyway, so that should work for me. I appreciate humorous articles here as much as the next guy, assuming they are actually related to technology in some way. If I want just random stupidity, I can just go to The Onion [theonion.com]. I used to come here to get *informed* about what is going on in the world in general, as it applies to technology. Guess I need to explore all the filter

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by mcohrs ( 1044844 )

      I for one am am grateful to the author, I now know that I do not need to worry about seeing some TSA person spanking his monkey right there in security.

    • I think nerds need to be aware that there is such a thing as a service monkey. Further, once we gain this knowledge, the natural question is since you people want to search my notebook, how does this apply to my newly discovered awareness of service monkeys? Do they check for flingable poo? Do they check to see if it can urinate on command? Can they touch my monkey?

      The number of duplicate posts with duplicate explanations about whether the monkey may be touched or spanked clearly suggests nerds are inte

      • "I think nerds need to be aware that there is such a thing as a service monkey. Further, once we gain this knowledge, the natural question is since you people want to search my notebook, how does this apply to my newly discovered awareness of service monkeys? Do they check for flingable poo? Do they check to see if it can urinate on command? Can they touch my monkey?"

        Can you attach friggin' laser beams to their heads? They'd be much more mobile on land than sharks?!?!

    • What?
      You mean you don't use service monkeys for the maintenance of your network cabling at work?

      And having a service monkey at hand in case the cockpit has to be rewired could save your life (or more important, your in-flight wi-fi).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by KlomDark ( 6370 )

      Something. All I'm seeing lately on /. are the same articles I saw on Fark a day or two before.

      If it wasn't for having a four digit ID (and all the perks that come with that!) there'd be nothing for me here... ;)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by v1 ( 525388 )

      Slashdot is reduced to publishing stories about "Service Monkeys"?

      Stay tuned, tomorrow's story will be about servicing the monkeys.

    • Perhaps the poster meant Code Monkey [wikipedia.org]? Or maybe the poster is afraid that first they check our service monkey's diapers, then they check our code monkey's diapers?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by selven ( 1556643 )

      To me, the summary feels like it's trying to talk about something, but just as a background for the overarching sexual metaphor.

  • Two trained animals in these (Score:3, Funny)

    by pngwen ( 72492 ) on Thursday March 25, 2010 @02:35PM (#31615000) Journal

    I like all the sections that say "Security Officers have been trained to not _______". So you have a trained service monkey, and it has to meet up with a trained higher order primate at a checkpoint!

    Of course, "higher order primate" might give a bit too much credit to the TSA goon squad, but they certainly are in fact trained animals. Sadly, like many monkeys, they do occasionally lift shiny objects from innocent bystanders....

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by BuckaBooBob ( 635108 )

      So if you do some reading.. Most "Helper Monkeys" are given to people that have lost use of their arms/hands.. and yet the TSA mentions "will coach the handler on how to hold the monkey during the visual inspection" and "The inspection process may require that the handler to take off the monkey’s diaper as part of the visual inspection." and "Only the handler will touch or interact with the service monkey."..

      Mind you the question does come to mind how the helper monkey's diaper would get changed if yo

  • God damn you all to hell! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I have been waiting YEARS to use that one.

  • Let the inappropriate comments again. But I like it when they touch my monkey. he he he

  • Like so many of the few dates I've had, they may want to see the monkey, but they certainly don't want to touch it.

    But they'll tell me how to handle and position the monkey, so that's progress.

  • Is it April 1st already? (Score:3)

    by gyrogeerloose ( 849181 ) on Thursday March 25, 2010 @02:53PM (#31615290) Journal
    I must have lost a few days somewhere along the line...

  • Yes, but... (Score:3, Funny)

    by vikingpower ( 768921 ) on Thursday March 25, 2010 @02:54PM (#31615314) Homepage Journal
    ...will the monkey blend ?

  • wow. they *exist* (Score:5, Informative)

    by earlymon ( 1116185 ) on Thursday March 25, 2010 @02:55PM (#31615340) Homepage Journal

    http://www.monkeyhelpers.org/ [monkeyhelpers.org]

    Wow. Seriously - wow.

    • It's pretty interesting too. I wonder how they get around the fact that these are not domesticated animals. What I mean is, cats and dogs have lived and evolved with humans for thousands of years and for the most part will obey humans or are sufficiently docile towards humans. Whereas these monkeys definitely still have very deep instincts about living in the wild, and are prone to turn, well wild. I guess that is part of why these are so small. If they were to try this with a chimp it could literally

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        It's pretty interesting too. I wonder how they get around the fact that these are not domesticated animals. ....... If they were to try this with a chimp it could literally rip a human's arms off.

        Or a face.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Lumpy ( 12016 )

        I don't care how "domesticated" you think your house cat it. the only reason it does not eat you is because you are too big. Breed a tiger sized house cat, and kitty will start eating people, ripping them apart with their claws, etc....

        Yet huge dogs that are of breeds that are fully tame will not try to eat their masters or other humans. There are breeds of Irish wolf hounds of mastiffs that will scare the living crap out of almost anyone seeing one. Nothing like having a dog look you in the eye and

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by CopaceticOpus ( 965603 )

      There are helper monkeys? And here I've been getting my own beer from the fridge like a sucker!

  • Where do I get off this !#@$% ride? I miss my old country...
  • These sound cool, where can I get one. And most importantly; will it make me sammiches?

  • Monkeys inspecing Monkeys (Score:4, Funny)

    by scorp1us ( 235526 ) on Thursday March 25, 2010 @03:08PM (#31615584) Journal

    Does that mean TSA agents will eat ticks if they find any, and does your monkey have to return the inspection favor?

  • my gym partners' a monkey

  • I don't know what to say, how even to try to be moderately informative, insightful or even funny, I have no idea. I am just thinking this: would I really want a monkey to service me? Wasn't there a movie about it on the interwebs?

  • "The inspection process may require that the handler to take off the monkey's diaper as part of the visual inspection"

    The TSA wants to see our monkeys people.

  • This gives me a great idea for Mike Meyers, a simian, and a form-fitting black outfit...

  • ...except me and my monkey!

  • Redundant Hilarity (Score:4, Funny)

    by cosm ( 1072588 ) <thecosm3@gma i l .com> on Thursday March 25, 2010 @03:58PM (#31616470)
    The full body scanners already accomplish this. They can even scan beavers and sweater-puppies, so I hear.

  • If they didn't have procedures they would be crucified the first time a monkey came thru. But since they planned ahead and do, they get made fun of.

    Just can't win.

  • Shock The Monkey - Robert Plant

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Umm...

      Peter Gabriel?

  • RIP, Warren.

  • What?? Not even one "Show me the monkey" joke?
  • This will be quite helpful for Hewlett-Packard (formerly DEC) support staff. Since 1980 they routinely bring their own scratch monkeys [catb.org] on support trips.

  • A human spokesperson for the ServiceMonkey union today announced a general strike aimed at eliminating the "barbaric and demeaning mandate that all service monkeys be required to wear diapers while traveling. "Our selfless service monkeys cannot speak, and forcing them to wear diapers effectively silences their primary means of communication. We are here today to assert the right of all our union members to freely employ their perfectly natural inclination to anal and genital-based modes of expression."

    Re

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