All week I've been in the nether regions, the sticks, the country, the bucolic boonies, the hinterregions of the backwoods, fretting over how much I'd have to read to you upon my return, how many hours I'd have to try my larynx to make it up to you, just how many stories I'd have to penitently tell. I worried whether I'd still be able to read at all, for sources had said that that part of the land is full of heathens, of illiterates, of INGRATES! Fortunately, in fact, the people in that part of the land were full of nothing but good cheer and good will, and I never questioned their ability to read, and I myself returned wtih literacy intact. Whether my oral storytelling skills were preserved as well, I'm not sure-- here's a nice long one to put them to the test.