The expression "monkey on your back" comes from an ancient fable about a man who, in a time of plenty, carried a monkey on his back and fed the monkey a banana whenever he ate one. (But today, no one pays any attention to the wisdom of ancient fables. And no body here will pay any attention to this post. �'est la vie.)
Came a time of famine. Fewer and fewer bananas until there were none. But the monkey's appetite for bananas still demanded satisfaction. It did the man in.
A friend of mine died from the same parasitic insistence. Literally.
In Alaska as a young man, he ate raw caribou and ingested parasites. As long as he was fit, the appetite of that inner colony was no problem. He stayed hard and strong as long as he was active.
He went back to his childhood home in Germany when he retired � stayed too long � got sick enough to be hospitalized � died there as puzzled doctors strained and struggled to diagnose what was killing him.
Autopsy revealed the cause � that colony of parasites had eaten his life out of him.
And of course the parasites died, too.
Unions often = monkeys = caribou worms.
That's the nature of the beasts.
