Check this account: Invitation puts monkey in the middle at bank

By Abigail Goldman

Saturday, July 19, 2008 | 2 a.m.

So, a guy and a spider monkey walked into a bank.

The smaller of the two primates was wearing a diaper, with a hole cut out for its tail, which made the monkey’s 10-minute dash through Washington Mutual on Valle Verde Drive at Paseo Verde Parkway in Henderson on Thursday all the more amusing.

But bank employees really, really don’t want to talk about it. This is probably because a teller invited the animal inside, only to realize it wouldn’t leave. Instead, it scaled an employee, ran across tables, dangled off a room divider, and clung to the chair of a customer trying to close an account. That is, the customer was trying to close the account.

That customer, Maggie Leung, a former Las Vegas Sun copy desk chief, described it all as “kind of a fun diversion.”

The furry fellow’s owner explained that the room would have to wait for the monkey to become bored with the bank because it would bite someone if forcibly removed.

So, the owner just stood in the doorway and called its name. Leung thinks it was “Mojo.”

Sadly, the most the Sun could squeeze out of a branch employee was that the visit wasn’t exactly “charming.” Oh, and that the customer was asked not to bring his pet back.

The monkey could not be reached for comment.