This challenge is produced by GirlieOnTheEdge with the following simple rules:
Write 6 Sentences. No more. No less.
Use the current week’s prompt word – INGREDIENT
Click here to hear the author read his words:
otnoT
He tells me that he was brought up by the Cherokee, his mother was half Comanche and half something else that he mumbles with his head turned away so I can’t hear, and that his father was ‘probably from some rubbish tribe across the other side of the mountains, or maybe the milkman’.
I tell him that I was born in Toonheid (Townhead to you posh folk), that my mum was from the Garngad (where they spell culture with a k) and my dad from the Calton (where, throughout recorded history, they have never found the need to ever spell culture), none of which has even a nodding acquaintanceship with the better districts of Glasgow.
I call him otnoT because, in the time I’ve known him, he has done so, oh so many things, that he ought not to have.
He calls me Kemo Sabe which, I’ve discovered, loosely translates as I-find-it-unbe-jolly-lievable-that-you-remain-as-yet-unscalped-you-numpty.
I explain to him about our Highland games, how we eat haggis, where no single ingredient is as important as the sauce, uisge beatha, which you call fire-water, play bagpipes and throw tree-trunks about the place while dancing around swords wearing kilts (us, that is, not the swords).
He scowls at me through his war-paint, pauses for a moment from paring his toenails with a tomahawk, and grumbles (in an impressive display of confused ethnicity) ‘Jings, crivvens and michty me, these palefaces call us savages…’
Sound Bite Fiction 
I like the story for its wit and humor. But after the laughter ……
To me it is a universal story. One could fill in the blanks with different people/nationalities/language etc. We all misunderstand others in some way. We can’t legislate to change our prejudices, but perhaps stories can help us rethink and understand them.
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Thank you, dear Lady, for enjoying the jokes and yet seeing the message behind them.
As for your pyjamas…
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Yes, a highly entertaining kultural exchange. Bravo.
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Thanks, D!
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As soon as I clicked on your story I remembered how much I’d enjoyed yours from last week–so I was fully primed for another good one, and you did NOT disappoint, Sir!!
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Very kind of you, Zelda, much appreciated.
But I’m feeling the pressure now!
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No no! No pressure! Take good care of YOU–I’ll look forward to reading your post soon 🙂
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Oh dear.
I fear, Zelda, that you won’t find this week’s tale quite so much fun.
Sorry in advance.
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Okay, I’ll prepare my heart 🙂
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It’s already on my blog, Zelda, The Food of Love
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Kulture is in the eye of the beholder. Excellent story.
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I think that’s a stye, Mimi
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well it’s no longer morning, but i did apppreciate the chuckle! good six
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Then it’s all good, sir!
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(bright-yellow flicker of a convenience store lighter behind the where the patrons become indistinguishable from the dark of the Six Sentence Café and Bistro… eyes and ears directed towards the Wollensak sitting on a plain wooden chair on the small stage.)
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This is a great comment, Clark, in that it has no impact whatsoever on any of my previous thinking.
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Imaginative character building of so-called savages 🙂
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As always, Reena, we wonder who really are the savages.
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True.
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Always enjoy seeing a well-placed ‘jings’ or ‘crivvens’ in a story. I was scratching my head as to what the heck “otnoT” could mean… then came the ref to Lone Ranger, ah! (and in my head I heard: Hi ho Silver, away! or something like that).
Excellent work CE. Big smile throughout 😁
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I wasn’t sure if otnoT would be too subtle, so I left some minor clues!
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An admirable piece. I love a chuckle in the morning! 🙂
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You can’t beat a morning chuckle, Chris
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Absolutely excelled your self this week, you Franco-Scot, you. Laughed all the way through. Just one factual correction: as Gary Larsen’s ‘The Far Side’ advised some time ago, ‘kemo sabe’ as applied to the Lone Ranger is Comanche for ‘horse’s ass’.
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If you laughed, I’m happy, Doug.
And while I’d never presume to dispute the great man’s words, otnoT speaks Cherokee, where the same word has a subtly, very subtly, different meaning.
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🙂
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I love your translation of “kemo sabe”: “I-find-it-unbe-jolly-lievable-that-you-remain-as-yet-unscalped-you-numpty”. Also using a tomahawk on one’s toenails.
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Glad you enjoyed, Frank.
One man’s savage…
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What a fun and, I’m fairly certain, unique kultural exchange. (Barrhead = the Garngad)
otnoT is brilliant, as a name and a character.
And yes, the whole colonial era summed up in the last sentence.
As well as the solution to the missing part of his mother’s DNA?
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Thanks, Jenne, it was indeed fun to write, but let’s not over-analyse, okay!
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