When Charles Duskins of Rush Rapids, Minnesota brought home an adorable sock monkey as a gift for his five-year old daughter Mary, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
"My daughter was ecstatic and named him 'Stinky' right away. She took him everywhere and it was her favorite toy. For awhile."
It didn't take long for that to change. Soon, Mary was complaining to Charles and his wife Deborah about Stinky's strange behavior.
"She claimed the monkey wanted to give her a massage, and that she found a cigarette butt in one of his little pockets. My wife and I thought it was just a kid's imagination, but then we experienced it for ourselves."
Deborah continues the tale. "I was in the kitchen pouring myself a glass of wi…iced tea, when I turned around and there was Stinky sitting on the counter leering at me. Then, and this is what really scared the living tar out of me, he spoke. He said, 'Hey, Charley's gone. Why don't you go slip into something more comfortable, like your bed.' I screamed and ran out of the kitchen. When I came back with a broom, he was gone."
The disturbing behavior didn't end there. One evening while taking a shower, Deborah opened the curtain to get out only to find Stinky sitting on the toilet seat smoking a cigar. Pornographic magazines and an empty fifth of bourbon were found hidden in Mary's closet. The straw that broke the camel's back for the Duskins was the night they received a call from the Rush Rapids police asking them to come to the station and pick up a drunk, belligerent sock monkey.
"Stinky was just a bad apple," said Charles, looking back at how things had gone so wrong. "I was on a business trip in Warsaw when I bought him. It was a dingy little shop in an alley and the guy behind the counter had a pentagram tattooed on his forehead. He licked the monkey's face before he put it into the bag. I guess I should have been a little more careful."
Stinky has long since gone to the local landfill, but an eerie, smoky presence is still felt by the Duskins from time to time, and Deborah always locks the bathroom door before her shower.
