WE ALL NEED REWARDS FOR WORKING HARD AND DOING WELL.

Even kids.
Especially kids.

The Backstory: Girly Girl and Budd Boy worked their little monkeh tushies off last semester. They got themselves up early for school without complaining. BB got up at crazy o'clock M-W-F for cadet band and never missed a single practice. Piano lessons, Girls on the Run(GG ran 3 miles nonstop and beat her previous time). Nearly perfect report cards. Brad made High Honor Roll his first year in middle school.

The Setup: Last Friday, we told GG and BB we'd pick them up from school at noon, because they had "orthodontist appointments". We were really surprising them with a weekend at Wisconsin's Great Wolf Lodge.

The Payoff:

Director's Commentary: Mamma monkeh never feeds Slim Jims to teh bebbeh monkehs. BB ate the one meant (as a joke) for Daddy monkeh's Christmas stocking. Said Slim Jim somehow got lost in the monkeh mobile in December, and Mamma forgot all about it...until little monkeh hands found it.

Director's PS: It was no ordinary Slim Jim. It was the Superginormous Slim Jim found near the checkout lane at Dominick's grocery store. Previous uses include wapping monkehs upside the head, in futile attempt to silence whining for candy; whipping monkehs on tiny monkeh behinds in futile attempt to stop monkeh fights; mock-strangling monkehs in humorous albeit semi-serious (and futile) attempt to silence begging for "just one more quarter so I can buy a bouncy-ball from the machine!"