U: The luck of the Uakari

uakari, noun. A short-tailed, long-haired monkey

At some point, either through import or because they were native, the zoo of the Free City of Jubylon had a large amount of uakaris, bald monkeys with short tails and long hair. For whatever reason, the zoo had huge problems with them escaping and then running loose in the streets, climbing buildings and stealing food, especially fruit. At some point, it became a sport for the dockworkers to catch the monkeys and return them unharmed to the zoo (a tradition which apparently began as an excuse for a dockworker to say hello to his future wife, who was working as a receptionist at the zoo at the time). At a certain point, the zoo began giving away “medals” made from small pieces of brass on a red ribbon as a reward along with a small "finders' fee" in the form of a biscuit and a glass of apple juice.

Because of that and perhaps due to the wedding between the aforementioned dockworker and receptionist (complete with a lot of pictures of uakaris), an informal belief or tradition developed that catching an uakari brought luck to the extent, where "Lucky as a bald monkey" became a joke or saying.

One thing that also carried on was the exchange of the brass tokens, which eventually became a symbol of a favour owned on the harbours. Essentially a kind of underground currency, the “uakari medals” was used amongst the homeless, dock workers, sailors, petty criminals, etc. to exchange favours and pay off small debts. Why? Because they brought luck, pure and simple. At one point, a simple pensioned baker, Frederick Schmidt died of a heart attack. He was then found to have been “Mortimer el Noir”, a famous cat burglar. The backroom of his former bakery was filled to the brink with stolen goods, mostly countless pieces of exquisite art. There was a small pile of golden doubloons, silver bars, loads of very expensive jewellery, including a princess’ tiara…. and a large collection of uakari medals. Schmidt’s last will and testament consisted of a single hand-written note, placed in front of his collection.
“They did bring luck! I leave everything I own to the Free City of Jubylon Zoo. Everything I don’t own I leave to the zoo as well. ”