Tech Tip: Blogger Template

Well it took me six weeks...but I finally changed the background on my blog! It is now a way better representation of my personality. It is bright and fun and remind me a bit of a childhood wallpaper. But hey, that is okay because I am not ready to grow up quite yet! It is also my favorite color. Pretty much anything on the blue/green spectrum is my favorite color honestly. Let me know what you think!

Storytelling Week Six: Bad First Date

Bad First Date

{Radio Hosts} “Hey man, this is Cash and Bradley’s Second Date on K 95.5 Tulsa. What can we do for you?”

{Skull} “Hey y'all, my name is Skull and I went on what I thought was a really great date with this beautiful girl named Afiong. I thought we had a great time and now she isn’t returning my calls. I would really like to know why she doesn’t want to go on a second date. “

{Radio Hosts} “Yeah man, let’s give her a call and see what she has to say.”

[Phone rings.]

{Female voice} “Hello?”

{Radio Hosts} “Hello! Is this Afiong?"

{Female voice} "Yeah?"

{Radio Hosts} "Hey Afiong, it is Cash and Bradley and we have a mutual friend, Skull - remember him?”

{Afiong nervously} “Yeah, hey, I remember him - we went out once.”

{Radio Hosts} “Yeah, we heard! We also heard you weren’t returning his calls. We were just curious about what went wrong on that first date to make you not call him back.”

{Afiong} “Well, it was all going great at first. He was a very handsome man. I saw him at the market and just knew I wanted to talk to him. Almost a love at first sight kind of deal.

Well, I decided to invite him home with me. He met my parents and made a great impression. We talked into the wee hours of the night and loved every second of it. In the morning he asked me to come with him to meet his mother back in his town. Of course, I was so infatuated with him I could think of nothing else to say but OMG YES! I was thinking maybe it was finally my turn to find true love and get married. So that evening we went over to his mom’s place - everything was going fine at first. But then, he just up and left me. He left me alone with his old, decrepit mother for the rest of the night! He didn’t even say where he was going or when he would be back. At first it wasn’t a big deal but then she kept asking me to do all these chores for her. And what was I supposed to say? I couldn’t tell this poor old lady no. So I cleaned her house, mowed her lawn, did her laundry and even gave her a pedicure. All before he ever came home. And then, he came home drunk! He left me with his mother to go get drunk with friends. Of course I was done at this point. I vowed never to answer his calls. He is not handsome enough to deal with all that drama.”

[The radio hosts were silent, struck with disbelief at this wild story.]

{Radio Hosts} “Wow. That is probably the best reason to not call back we have ever heard on this show. Sorry to spring this on you, but Skull is actually on the line listening. Skull, do you have anything to say for yourself?”

{Skull} “You and my mother were getting along so well. I got a text from my buddies to go out since I was in town and I figured you could manage alone for a bit.”

{Afiong}” Six hours! You were gone for six hours!”

{Skull} “Hey! We weren’t in a serious relationship. I didn’t feel like I needed to check in with you or tell you what I was doing. I can do whatever I want and be gone for as long as I want! I am my own person.”

{Afiong} “Yeah, you’re right. We weren’t in a serious relationship, which is even more of a reason to not leave me alone with your mother! Gosh, my parents were so right about you! You are a selfish jerk!”

{Skull} “Whatever, you weren’t that hot anyways!”

[Phone clicks.]

{Radio Hosts} “Wow… well, that got a bit more heated than we anticipated. Usually we offer a free meal to a couple who agree to try out a second date. But after that fiasco, it sounds like you need a dinner for one. So we will send you some free dinner coupons to try and help you forget that awful date.”

{Afiong} “OMG thank you guys so much! As awful as it was, it was a great learning experience. I now know that my parents' instincts have been around a lot longer than mine and are actually pretty reliable.”

Author’s Note: This retelling is based off a Nigerian tale about a girl who marries a skull from the spirit world. She is blinded by his false beauty and marries him against her parents' wishes. He then takes her home with him, which turns out to be the spirit world. He turns back into his ugly self and she is left to care for his old mother. In the original story the mother is actually pretty nice. She keeps the girl from being hurt by all the cannibals in the spirit world and then eventually helps her make an escape to her home town. When I read this story it got me thinking about this radio show I have heard where the radio hosts call people who went on a blind date to see what went wrong and try to hook them back up again. It is out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. I decided this Nigerian tale could make a good bad first date story, so I retold it as the radio show. I changed the ending a bit and didn’t use Skull’s mother as her escape from him. I just made it into a public fight instead. I kept all the names the same and the overarching lesson of trusting your parents the same as well because I feel like that is a great lesson to be learned. 

Bibliography: Folk Stories From Southern Nigeria by Elphinstone Dayrell (1910). The Disobedient Daughter Who Married a Skull

The Actual Hosts of Second Date

Reading Diary Week Six cont: Nigeria

Folk Stories From Southern Nigeria by Elphinstone Dayrell (1910).

Eagle, King of the Birds

The Story of the Lightning and the Thunder

• Whenever lightning is mad he becomes destructive and burns and destroys land and homes
• Thunder is lightnings mother and she yells at him when he becomes destructive but it usually doesn't make him stop

The Bush Cow and the Elephant

• They did not like each other and were fighting for domaninance 
• They fought in the middle of town and were scaring the people
• a monkey sees the fight and goes to get someone to stop it but forgets on the way
• eventually he remembers and the towns king kills the two animals

The Cock Who Caused a Fight Between Two Towns

• Another story about jealousy
• A man was jealous of two brothers so he started a fight between them by claiming one stole the others pet to kill
• the two brothers and their towns fought and then the king stopped it and found that the third man had started the fight out of jealousy and he was sentenced to death

The Affair of the Hippopotamus and the Tortoise

• The hippo always served all the animals dinner
• He then started saying if you did not know his name you could not eat
• One tortoise said what happens if I know your name and the hippo says he will go down to the water in shame
• The tortoise finds out his name from one of his wives and the hippos then live in the water from then on. 

Why Dead People are Buried

• A king sent a dog out with a message on how to revive people after death
• He got distracted and forgot to spread the message
• So the king sent a sheep to do it but he spread the wrong messages, that people should just be buried at death and it just stuck

Of the Fat Woman Who Melted Away

• More jealousy stories
• The fat wife could not go out in the sun but the other wife nagged her until she did
• She melted outside but her toe was saved so she could be reborn
• The husband returned the other wife to her parents who sold her as a slave to repay him his dowry for their daughters jealous behaviors

Why the Moon Waxes and Wanes

• The moon used to provide for an old woman and the people got mad because the moon was getting thin
• They stopped the woman from taking from the moon and she eventually died
• the moon was scared and stayed in the sky from here on out getting fat and thin over and over

How the Tortoise Overcame the Elephant and the Hippopotamus

• the tortoise tricked them into thinking he was strong by tying a rope to a rock and a tree and pretending it was him 
• They both wanted to befriend him after that thinking he was strong
• So he went to the water and his son went to land with the elephant 
• this is why tortoises live on land and water

The King and the 'Nsiat Bird

• The king wanted to marry this beautiful bird but she had a curse of having twins which is not allowed
• when she had her twins she and her family ran away to the tree tops to avoid being killed for having twins

Concerning the Hawk and the Owl

• The hawk took a baby owl to eat but since the parents were so quiet when he took the child he became nervous of what they were going to plot as revenge
• He decided to return the baby owl and get a baby chicken instead
• the chickens were very loud and crazy so he knew they would not plan revenge over the night so he continues to feed on chicks forever

The 'Nsasak Bird and the Odudu Bird

• These birds are competing to see who can go the longest without eating
• The Nsasak bird sneaks out of his cage at night and eats while the other bird eventually dies
• The Nsasak bird wins the title of the best bird in the land

The Election of the King Bird

• The birds had a fight to establish dominance and the eagle won
• now eagles are seen as a sign of good or bad luck depending on their flight patterns and help with hunting when you wear their feathers

Reading Diary Week Six: Nigeria

Folk Stories From Southern Nigeria by Elphinstone Dayrell (1910).

Angry but Cute Cat 

Of the Pretty Stranger Who Killed the King

• Moral of the story is do not trust strangers
• A shape shiftier changed into a young girl to get close to the awful king then kill him in his sleep
• This king was a awful person who rampaged other countries and took many prisoners and made them slave

Why the Bat Flies by Night

• The bat tricks his "friend" the bush rat into killing himself
• Once they realized the bat caused the incident they tried to kill him
• He hid out while they looked all day and had to adjust his habits and only come out for food at night so he didn't get caught

The Disobedient Daughter Who Married a Skull

• The daughter was more interesting in looks when searching for a husband
• When she finally found a man handsome enough for her he takes her to his homeland which is really the spirit world where she could be eaten by the cannibals
• She befriends and old lady who hides her and eventually sneaks her out of the spirit world and returns her home
• The girl then starts listening to her parents and not marrying just for looks

The King Who Married the Cock's Daughter

• This story was really strange, I think the king married an animal, but I am a little unsure. 
• The kings other wives were jealous of his most recent one (the possible hen) and made her look stupid so the king would get rid of her
• When the king found out of this plan he kicked out the woman who headed the plan and she was left on the street
• Moral of the story, do not let jealousy overcome you

The Woman, the Ape, and the Child

• This was a bit of a confusing story
• Basically the moral is to not trust what everyone says because alot of people ended up dying because a jealous man made up a story
• A jealous man basically told another man his wife was being unfaithful and the man killed his wife and since they were from different towns the two towns started fighting over it and a good chunk of people died

The Fish and the Leopard's Wife

• The fish was an adulterer and was sentenced to life underwater as punishment for his bad deeds

Why the Worms Live Underneath the Ground

• Ants tried to fight the worms to establish dominance so the worms hid out underground and have stayed there always fearful for their lives

The Elephant and the Tortoise

• A jealous tortoise tricked the elephant into losing his eyes
• a generous worm loaned the elephant his eyes but the elephant could never give them back
• this is why the elephant has small eyes and worms are blind

Why a Hawk Kills Chickens

• The hawk married a hen and paid her parents a dowry for her
• The hen left the hawk and her parents could not repay the dowry so the hawk takes chicks when he sees them as a repayment.

Why the Sun and the Moon Live in the Sky

• They invited water over to visit but the water was too big and drove them out into the sky

Why the Cat Kills Rats

• The rat was stealing from the cat to give presents to his sweetheart
• When the rat was found out the girl was beaten (which is dumb, I doubt she knew they were stolen) and the rat was given to the Cat
• The cat lost his job so he ate the rat out of anger and has hated rats ever since