This may never happen to you. If it doesn't, you can thank your lucky stars that all of your family members are cooperative and well-meaning, and that not one of them spends his days thinking up ingenious ways to create mischief. It may also mean that none of your family members is a common chimpanzee. For instance, if your only non-human ape family member is just a bonobo, there's a very good chance you will be spared this experience.

However, if it does happen, here's what to do...

Bow is fully potty trained. Ninety-nine percent of the time, he goes in the potty and only in the potty. And that occasional accident -- well, it's not an accident at all! It's his way of asserting himself!

I live in the pens with Bow. Unless someone else is covering for me, I'm not allowed to leave. If I need to leave for a moment, I have to ask permission. Who do I ask? I ask Bow. Why? Because if I were just to leave without permission, I'd have a big mess waiting for me.

The problem is that every so often, I do ask for permission, and he gives permission, and still things turn out badly.

For instance, there was the time last week when I went to put the chicken in the oven. We were going to have cornish hen with sweet potato for dinner. (This is one of half a dozen standby recipes that I use over and over again, because they make for healthy, home cooked meals with little to no prep time.) In order for dinner to be ready by five pm, I had to get it into the oven by three.

"Bow, I have to go put the chicken in the oven," I said. "Do I have permission?"

"Go fast!" he spelled back.

"But do I have your permission?"

"Permission," he spelled.

I went to the kitchen, washed the sweet potato, wrapped it in foil, then unwrapped the Cornish hen that had been thawing all day, and after spraying it with cooking oil, I put it in the oven with the sweet potato.

I took no side trips. I did not look at anything. I returned immediately to the pen.

By the way Bow was acting when I got back, I could tell at once that something was wrong. The only questions was: what?

Bow was sitting on the potty and rocking back and forth a little. He looked -- well, not guilty -- but at the very least nervous. Something was up. I looked in the potty. While I was away, Bow had pooped in the potty and peed there. This was good. It's allowed. It's even encouraged. But was something else wrong? I examined the floor to see if he had dripped. The floor was clean. Everything was fine. Why did he act so strange?

I wiped his bottom and took out the little red insert part of the potty to dump. I took my key to open the door, and gasped! The lock was covered with excrement. No other part of the door had been defiled. Just the round bit where the lock was.

Fortunately, the pen was designed with more than one exit. There are three doors. Two of them lead into other pens and not directly into the open. All I had to do was go around the long way.

I was very upset. Bow was banished outside to endure a soaking, which he hates but is perfectly harmless. I then proceeded to clean the lock. I had to do it quickly, before the poop could set. I used cleaning fluid, paper towels and then I cleaned the crevices using twisty ties that come with garbage bags. By the time I was done, the lock was shinier than it had ever been.

I was still pretty upset when I brought Bow back in. "Why did you do it?" I asked.

"You came back so fast I didn't know what to do!" he spelled.

What would he have done if I had come back slowly?

I have wanted to raise a chimpanzee all my life. This is a dream come true, but there are days when it is easy to lose track of why I am doing this.

When I was a teenager, I kept talking about how I wanted to raise a chimpanzee. My father once asked me why.

"Well, because I want to talk to a chimpanzee. I want to hear what a chimp has to say."

"But why? Why can't you just talk to humans?" He was suspicious of my motives. It was true, I wasn't doing a very good job of talking to humans at the time. "Do you think it will be easier for you to talk to a chimp?"

"No. No, it's not that. I want to talk to chimpanzees because they are so similar to us and yet different. I want to hear about their point of view. I want to know how they see things."

At the time, I imagined discussions of very lofty issues: justice, morality, life and death, honor. I had no idea that many of the discussions that I would have with Bow would be about eating, drinking and defecating. But it's inevitable. What do we talk to our children about?

Honor doesn't seem to be one of the first topics that come up.

We are a family, and we do things together. Because Bow is stuck in the pens now, we are all stuck in and around the pens, too. And Bow does talk. He expresses himself well. But knowing what he says is not the same thing as really, really seeing things from his point of view.

I don't think I'll ever understand why he pooped into the lock last week. It's not as if he can't be trusted alone at all. A couple of months ago there were tornado-like winds in the area. The power went off. They called me from the school to ask if I could pick up Sword and a friend of hers. There was no power at the school, and they were trying to get all the children picked up early. We have a generator, and I was able to get it going.

I told Bow that I had to go get Sword and her friend from school. "Yes," he said. He understood that it was important and he gave no trouble. When I returned with the girls, the pen was clean.  There was no mess. He had waited for me patiently. 

Bow knows when something is important.

I eventually forgave Bow for pooping into the lock, and by bedtime it was all behind us. Or so I thought. But the next morning I tried the lock and it wouldn't turn.

"See what you've done! Now I'll have to call a locksmith."

But I didn't call a locksmith.

I spent half the morning going the long way around every time I needed to come in or go out. Then I remembered the can of three-in-one WD all purpose oil that we got for another occasion when one of the locks was getting testy. I oiled the keyhole, but still the lock would not turn. It took me a while to realize that I needed to oil the entire barrel. Once I did, miraculously the lock was good as new.

Apparently, cleaning it had dried it out, but once greased again it worked perfectly.

Bow watched the entire proceedings with great interest.

After everything was under control, Bow took my hand and spelled out the following apology: "I'm sorry, Mommy, I didn't mean to make the lock not work. I was just trying to make it dirty."

It's good to know he has his priorities straight!