Gini, you put Mario on a plane by himself??!? With a stewardess (ok, ok flight attendant) who he obviously has eating out of his little hands already? With BEER??!!!??

Headlines on tonight's news.

Monkey goes ape on United!
Reuters 8/16/05
Mario, a mischevious monkey, boarded a flight in LA headed for Washington DC. The flight had to be diverted when it turned out he was served too many beers and "door-dashed" into the cockpit when one of the pilots came out to use the restroom. Said monkey - Mario - was then seen hanging off the controls on the ceiling, throwing many flight settings out of whack. Fortunately the co-pilot was able to stabilize the plane and get it back on course before a serious tragedy occurred. A frantic call was made to the person who was to be at the airport to receive the monkey. The flight attendants were told to give him a jar of marshino (sp?) cherries and he would calm right down. He was caught when he grabbed for the cherries, was strapped into his seat and the seat belts locked so he couldn't get out again. Even though the only problem reported after that was that he was spitting the cherry pits out at anyone who passed his seat, it was decided to divert the flight away from the white house in case the monkey was some sort of twisted terrorist scheme to distract the pilots and stewardesses. The plane landed safely and all aboard were ok. Mario was handed over to his owner owner who was told to never put this monkey on a flight alone again!