Hubba Bubba and Monkey Become Friends. A Short Story

"What do you mean you don't have a name?" Hubba Bubba, the worldly purple hippo, asked the monkey with wide-eyed surprise.
"I just don't have a name," the monkey said, his stringy legs just flopping about. "I'm just called 'Monkey.'"
"But everyone needs a name," said Hubba Bubba, who goes by Hubba for short and by roaminghubba on Twitter, Facebook, and the Internet  "How do you know who you are then?"
The monkey stopped and thought. How did he know who he was? "I don't know. I know who I am," he said emphatically.
"Well then how do other people know who you are?" asked Hubba, skeptically. Hubba Bubba had been given his name when he was just born, by a little girl named Frances, who had found inspiration in the name of a 1980s grape bubble gum. In addition to Hubba Bubba himself, his name was also shared with his parents, Mamma Hubba Bubba and Papa Hubba Bubba."They know who I am if I know who I am," said the monkey, who also roamed.
"But how do you know which monkey you are if there are other monkeys?"
"I've seen real monkeys, in the wild," said the monkey. "It was in the Philippines, while I was ziplining over a volcano."
"Really?" Hubba Bubba's eyes grew wide. "I’ve never seen a real hippopotamus in the wild." Hubba quietly thought what that might feel like, seeing a live hippopotamus, not just one of the stuffed ones like him. He thought, perhaps, he might see a real live hippo when he visited South Africa this summer with his friend Hugo.
Hubba asked, "How did you know which monkey you were when you were around the other monkeys?"
"It wasn't a problem," the monkey said. "They weren’t calling us by ‘monkey.’”
"I think we need to find you a name," Hubba Bubba said, insistently. “You can’t be an individual without a name.”
"I don't know. I think I am happy with 'Monkey,'" the monkey said. Maybe my name can just be ‘Monkey.’”
“I think you need a better name, a real name.” Hubba said. “Look at Winnie the Pooh. ‘Winnie the Pooh.’ Isn’t that better than ‘Rabbit’ or ‘Owl’? I was always sad that they did not have names.”
Hubba added casually, “You know I saw Winnie the Pooh and his gang tonight at the New York Public Library. I had my picture taken with them.” Hubba was very proud of that.  The monkey said, “Oh. I missed Winnie the Pooh.” He was sad. The Children’s Room in the New York Public Library had closed at 11 p.m. during the all-night adventure. The line to see Winnie and his friends had been too long.
He added, “But I have met the Roaming Gnome! I also got my picture taken with him.” The monkey wondered, “Is Roaming Gnome a name?”
“Wow,” Hubba said. “The gnome.” Hubba could not help but be impressed. After all, his online moniker, Roaming Hubba, was inspired by the Roaming Gnome.
Hubba tried to figure out if it was more impressive to have met the Roaming Gnome or Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, and Piglet. He couldn’t decide.
He liked the idea that Roaming Gnome got to travel the world and was impressed that the monkey was also a world traveler. “We can roam together,” Hubba said.
“Perhaps I can ride on your back?” the monkey asked, eyeing Hubba’s rounded shape.
“Yes! Then we can go on adventures together. I can carry you.” Hubba offered. “Maybe we’ll even find you a name. But for now I suppose I could just call you ‘Monkey.’”
So the monkey climbed on Hubba Bubba, and swung his legs over Hubba’s back. And the monkey and the hippo wandered off, together, to roam.

Thanks to James Somers and Hannah Goldstein for their contributions.