From: BETSYH@lms.kent.edu (Elizabeth H.)
Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
Subject: [alt.folklore.urban] Re: catching monkeys
Date: 16 Oct 1997 10:18:43 +0200

Subject: Re: catching monkeys 
From: paraic@antispam.indigo.ie (Paraic O'Donnell)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban

On 24 Sep 1997 23:23:44 -0400, afaber@panix.com (Alice Faber) wrote:

>Wasn't there a bit in one of the Winnie the Pooh books in which Pooh is
>trying to get honey out of a hole in a tree and gets his hand stuck? 
>Perhaps someone who's read these books more recently than 35 years ago
>might have a better memory for such frippery than I do...

My own memory proved as hazy as Alice's, but it was the work of
moments to waylay and abduct a small boy for the purposes of
elucidating this matter. Having lured him into the Field Office, I had
a lackey tie the snotty little wretch to a chair while I donned my
most villainous-looking cloak.

Pacing about him in what I hoped was an ominous manner, I began to
grill the odious little creature on the subject of Pooh.

"What," I demanded, "do you know about stuck bears?"

"Fuck off," he chirped. "Pervert," he added, as an afterthought. 

"Pooh, boy! What do you know about Winnie the Pooh?"

"What platform's it for?" he asked airily.

"Platform? *Platform*? What are you wittering about, child?"

"Playstation or N64," he intoned patiently.

"Book, you loathsome little pustule! He's a character from a
childrens' *book*! Don't they teach you to *read* anymore?" I
accentuated this last with an imperious sweep of my cloak. I stared at
him, gimlet-eyed and hook-nosed, looking for all the world like
Captain Hook's more dashing brother.

Slowly, with insolent deliberation, he replied, "I'm five,
piss-breath. I haven't started school yet."

Giving the morning's labours up as a bad job, I tossed the urchin out,
and set off for the library myself. In Kids' Korner (and this was a
*library*), beset by steely-eyed mums and Weetabix farts, I gleaned
the following - admittedly meagre - details:

Pooh does indeed get stuck. Having unlawfully gained entrance to the
domicile of one Rabbit, and consumed copious quantities of his
victim's honey, Pooh is unable to make good his escape. His illicit
meal has augmented the bear's already considerable girth and, as he
attempts to leave, he becomes inexorably lodged in the hole that
serves as the entrance to Rabbit's Howse.

A visual record of the event can be found at

http://www.enteract.com/~lab/pooh/pooh_stuck.html