Some people wake up to coffee. I wake up to headlines about three lab monkeys escaping from a crashed transport truck in Mississippi. Because apparently the universe flipped open its old pandemic screenplay binder and said, “Let’s workshop a new pilot.”

I mean three lab monkeys.Running loose. In 2025. After a truck crash.
With initial warnings that they were possibly infectious.

I don’t know about you, but the moment I heard that, my brain went straight to “Ah yes, this is how 28 Days Later starts.”

And right after that, a tiny internal whisper-channel chimed in “Or maybe it’s more of a Walking Dead Season 1 vibe with southern woods, strange warnings, unexplained cargo. Should we start gathering canned goods?”

Look, I try not to be paranoid. I’m a trained social psychologist. I know about cognitive distortions, catastrophizing, fear bias, yadda yadda yadda.  But I also lived through the COVID-19 chaos.
And I’ve watched enough apocalyptic cinema to know that when someone says, “Don’t worry, the escaped lab monkeys are not infectious”. That’s about as reassuring as being told, “Relax, it’s probably not a ghost” while the lights flicker in your hallway.

Here’s what gets me. Why were these monkeys being transported?
Where were they going? What research were they for? And, why did the news cycle drop the story faster than you drop your phone on your face in bed? Yes, I’ve done that and ouch!

Two of the monkeys were killed shortly after the escape “for safety.” The third was tracked down days later after a multi-agency search that sounded suspiciously like the prequel chapter of a dystopian novel.
All resolved, they say. Nothing to see here, they say.

Meanwhile, my overactive imagination is staging a whole Netflix 6 part series about the unanswered questions.

Because honestly, we are just crawling out of the COVID-shadowed paranoia tunnels. We’ve barely had time to restock our emotional shelves. Then Mississippi says “Surprise! Rogue lab primates!”

And yes, the news faded. But I didn’t. Not mentally, anyway.

I’m still sitting here thinking.
What kind of lab research uses monkeys that require hush-hush transport? How often does this kind of thing happen? Is this the start of a weird B-movie scenario where one surviving monkey becomes Patient Zero in 2032 and we all look back at October 2025 like, “Ohhhhh, so THAT’S what that was”?

I mean, I hope not. Really, truly.
I have things to do. I’m already planning trips, juggling work chaos, and dealing with cold hives and non-stop sneezing. I do not need rogue-research-primate energy entering my timeline.

But until someone gives me a satisfying explanation, I’ll be here warily sipping my coffee, scrolling the news, and mumbling

“This better not turn into a sequel.”