While in Morocco, a young man jumped his monkey up onto my wife's shoulder. I took a photograph. The monkey man told me what that photo was going to cost me and my wife and we were surrounded by irate/excited/loud/demanding merchants shouting at us that we have to pay the price demanded. My parents had a similar experience involving a St. Bernard dog in Switzerland, but it did not jump up on Mom's shoulder.

And then there was the time I had to buy my way out of a museum in Morocco with two smokey bear balloons (don't leave home without them) as i had lost my entrance ticket. Another museum attendant tried to pressure me for my billet as we left, but he didn't get any balloons.

joe petersburg,alaska