Monkeys Are Loose in Saint Louis, Phones Aren't Working, and That's a Fun Start to 2026

2026 is off to a wild start for anyone who lives in Saint Louis and/or has Verizon. You see, some days ago, it turned out that monkeys were spotted running loose around Saint Louis. Unlike when one from a medical transport escape or a person with paperwork for them comes forward (e.g., they have a disability and the monkey is an assistant), it is unclear where these monkeys came from. The Health Department has outright said it will not charge anyone or assign fines if people have the monkeys or information that will assist in their capture--so if you were hoarding monkeys in your house, this is your chance to avoid legal trouble if you own up to it. There have been plenty of memes about the monkeys, and some have even argued that there are no real monkeys--it is all a bogus AI hoax. That said, if you are in Saint Louis and stumble upon monkeys, you should avoid them for your safety and call for help. Oh, unless you have Verizon.

Yes, it just so happened today that Verizon's services went kaput for a lot of people, including your's truly. I was trying to call the pharmacy before driving over to ask a question about one of our kiddos' medications, only for the call to drop shortly after I connected. I found it odd but didn't think much of it. However, a few minutes later, I noticed my phone indicated that it lacked any connection to data or cell towers. The cell phone had basically become a brick unless I got on wiifi at a nearby Panera (local folks call it Saint Louis Bread Co and get snippy about that, but I call it Panera). This outage was very annoying, and if anyone nationwide had a real emergency, it was dangerous too. I only hope Verizon can avoid something like this from happening again by figuring out what the issue was.

All of this means if you were in Saint Louis today, you quite possibly could have found a random monkey wandering the streets but been unable to call anyone about it. Hence, this is all going according to the monkeys' secret plans, clearly. I joke, but 2026 already has been getting a bit quirky.