The director of a day camp said this to me as I was leaving. It’s one of the best compliments to storytelling skill there is.

It’s absolutely thrilling ot hear them moan, “Oh my butt fell asleep” or “My legs hurt” (from sitting still too long). It means they were so captivated they forgot to move.

It was scorching, hopefully the last day of a heat wave, and the little air conditioning there was in the room wasn’t enough to prevent me from breaking in a sweat while I was telling them stories.

These were the older kids. The ten to twelve year olds and I got a chance to do some storytelling, the folktales which I seldom get to tell.

Man, I was enjoying it as much as the kids. I told them Simpletons, which is a Persian version of the The Three Sillies. And then for some reason I went and told them the Three Sillies, which is British version of Simpletons.

I wasn’t planning on that and as a result I finished up before I could tell them my Go to Baghdad story. It’s a good story to end with. It’s from the Arabian nights and is about twelve hundred years old.

And then, on the same day, I received some letters from kids who had disrupted one of my presentations at a school.

I plan to respond to these letters. The letters are full of sentiments where they think I was hurt by their disrespectful behaviour.

I need to explain to them that they didn’t hurt me at all. They hurted the other students. It’s to them they should be apologizing.

I got paid either way.

In fact, that’s something I tell myself, usually when the teachers are being a pain in the neck. “I’m getting paid whether they co-operate or not.”

And I actually feel sorry for these kinds of kids. What must they be going through where they feel that acting out in such a situation is worth it?

I don’t know.

Still. It was a good day. I had fun telling the stories, and I got paid for it. Win-win!