Have you heard about the monkey who called 911?
Two weeks ago the San Luis Obispo County sheriff's office received a 911 call, but there was no voice on the other end. Baffled, deputies were dispatched to the source — a local zoo — to hunt down the caller, but they found no humans in distress. Instead they realized that a capuchin monkey named Route had grabbed a mislaid cellphone and randomly banged at the keypad until she called the emergency number.
Everyone laughed it off. The news stories said things such as "that's bananas" and dismissed it as "monkey business." But the story got me wondering. How likely was it that the monkey would call 911? Of all the keys Route could have punched, what were the chances she would hit a 9, a 1, another 1 and then the green "connect" button all in a row (assuming she didn't just happen on an "emergency" key)?
