The Purple Gorilla

"But whatever you do, don't you touch my purple gorilla." he tells the now drunk customer.

He closes the bar, and leads the drunk through a back door and down a great many flights of stairs, at the bottom of which is a heavy steel door with a heavy iron padlock.

As the bartender fumbles with the lock, he reminds the drunk, "Remember, you promised not to touch my purple gorilla."

Through the door they walk down an immense hallway, so long the other end was lost in the distance.
Constantly as they walked, the bartender repeated his warnings not to touch the purple gorilla.

At the end of the hallway was a 20 foot tall rough wooden door bound in brass, with three great steel sliding bolts. Acting as though he were ready to change his mind the bartender once more says, "Now you promised, if I show you this creature, you are absolutely, positively, under no circumstances going to touch my purple gorilla. The drunk, who by now is getting quite anxious to see this wondrous beast, agrees with the bartender that he would never for any reason at all touch such a rare and wonderful pet.

With that the bartender unlatches the three massive slide bolts and slowly opens the door. On the other side is a stadium sized room in the middle of which was a large iron cage. As they approached the cage, the drunk saw that there was indeed, a 12 foot tall, massively muscled, purple haired gorilla. And a finer specimen of the species has never and will never be found, in this world or any other. For half an hour at least the drunk stood marveling at the creature, until the bartender tells him that he needs to get back to help at the bar.

The drunk convinces him to allow him to stay and continue to examine the purple gorilla. The bartender leaves him with one last demand to not touch the wonderful animal. Now the drunk, being reminded of his promise not to touch the purple gorilla, starts to wonder why the bartender was so insistent about not touching the beast. Would touching it make him smarter, stronger, richer, or irresistible to women?

After an hour he gave in to the temptation, and touched the purple gorilla.
"A A A A R R R R R G G G G G G H H H H H H H ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !" growled the monster as it began to tear at the bars.

The fog in the drunk's brain cleared instantly with instant sobriety as the first bar came loose from the cage wall. He turned and ran. As he slid the three slide bars closed on the wooden door, he heard the cage fall in pieces on the floor as the huge purple gorilla came after him. Running down the hall towards the stairs, he wondered why he had even considered breaking his promise not to touch the purple gorilla. As he reached the steel door he heard the wooden door smash into firewood, and the heavy thudding of the immense omnivore tearing down the hall after him. As he shut the steel door, he caught a glimpse of purple.

Panting and out of breath, he ascended the stairs. Only half way up, he heard the screech of the steel door being torn off its hinges. Looking over his shoulder as he opened the back door of the bar, he saw the slobbering, many sharp toothed, growling purple face getting way too close to him.

As he passed through the entrance to the bar, the back door exploded into splinters, and the purple gorilla leaped across the room in a single bound, the drunk stumbled and hit the sidewalk.

Lying there trembling, sure that these were the last few seconds he would have on this earth, the sobered drunk looked up to see the dark, fang lined cavernous maw, and the rippling purple muscles of the horror as it reached down to him.

"Tag, you're It." it said.