Pet monkey gets loose inside Spirit Halloween store in Texas

PLANO, Texas (NBC, KYMA) - A trip to a Spirit Halloween store in Plano, Texas turned into a wild scene Monday night after a pet monkey escaped its owner and began swinging through the rafters.

A Spirit Halloween store can be a surreal shopping experience, but creepy clowns and spooky scarecrows took a back seat Monday night to the real show: A pet monkey running around above store shelves.

Arlene Pinkston was shopping with her daughters at a Spirit store off U.S. 75 in Plano.

"My daughter looked up and she said, 'What in the world,' and she's like, 'Is that a real monkey?' And I looked up and said, 'Well, it's got a diaper on, so I guess it is real,'" Pinkston shared.

For more than 30 minutes, the monkey was seen climbing poles, swinging from wires and crawling around rafters.

Jimmy Harris works at the store. He says the pet monkey got spooked by animatronics and ran away from a customer who brought the animal inside.

"It was entertaining. I was like, 'Huh.' A lot of people just stood and watched it for like the whole time...and we had kids trying to catch it," Harris detailed.

The Plano Police Department (PPD) was called and said when an officer arrived at the store, "He observed the monkey swinging from the rafters wearing a diaper…Eventually, a cookie was offered to the monkey by the owner and was able to gain control of it."

Pinkston was not there for that saying, "It had jumped down on the floor and ran past my leg, and at that point, I was like, 'Okay, I've had enough.'"

The moment was a picture or it didn't happen experience. Fortunately, Pinkston said she took about five videos of the incident.

PPD says the monkey was never a threat and was not injured.