UTMWWoQS, Entry the One-More-Than-First

So, my expedition is successful, and my crew has brought me back safely from the jungles of the ancient wilderness, much richer in learnings and with most of my arms still attached. We searched far and wide for evidence of history in the darkest corners of that oft-neglected continent to which we adventured, and found enough to keep cultural anthropologists and / or ethnographers in the region busy for decades.

We lived with a local tribe for about a year, local time, which amazingly translates to approximately seven days of Canadian time. During this time, we lived in thatch-roofed cottages we constructed with the help of the local villagers. We survived this whole time on the only food eaten by the men of the jungle, a type of shelf fungus which grows only on palm trees of a particular hue of chestnut brown, within a twenty mile radius of the campsite. The mushroom has some strange properties. After eating a couple of pounds of the substance, I seemed to grow neon purple wings, which also seemed to be eminating a colour of light that is not normally part of the visual spectrum. I tried talking to my trusty sidekick, William H. Huntsberger VII, Esq., but he turned into a blurred smudge of twinkling stardust, whereupon I started freaking out. A few days later I calmed down enough to have another meal. I seemed to grow wings a little less this time, and things seemed pretty normal from there to the conclusion of our journeys, although the penguins remained very chattery, and would not stop enrundilectiviating.

During my stay with the villiagers, I was allowed to partake in a viewing of the local Elder King's monthly reading of the Ancient Legends, which he finds encoded in the dots of pieces of birchbark retrieved from the forest floor. By rubbing a sacred pinecone against the birchbark, he can recieve the messages sent up to him through the ages by the Elder Jungle Gods. I will Relate to you one such message.

It is said that thousands of years ago, at the dawn of the creation of the earth by the great Centipede Mother, she who combines the elements of infinity into the blanket of the universe within her spidery silk, there lived a bear.

One day the bear asked his mother, "Mother, can I buy some new shoes? My boots are too small!"
"By the Mother and her Pinapple of Destiny, you cannot buy shoes! You can only buy boots!" his mother replied.
"But all the kids at school are wearing shoes!" said the little bear.
"You may wear boots or flippers, but not shoes!" replied the mother.
"I am too old for flippers," replied the bear, "and boots are so last February!"
"I will not allow a child of mine to wear boots," said Mom, "and that's that! If I gave you fifty shillings and a tophat made of spongecake, will you buy some decent boots for yourself?"
"Why certainly!" said the little bear, which was a masterful stroke of decietful cleverness, for in reality he had no intention of buying boots.
He went to the boot store, and asked the clerk if he sold any shoes.
"We sell no shoes!" replied the clerk. "Only boots. And that will be fifty shillings and a tophat made of spongecake.
"Is that all you sell?" asked the bear.
"No, actually. We sell flippers and moccassins."
"I'll take the moccasins then."
"ok. Give me the spongecake tophat," the stoorkeep demanded.

The bear returned home in the moccassins. He came in the door, and his father saw the moccassins. He called his wife into the room.

"MARGARET!"

Margaret, the bear's mother, came into the room and saw the moccassins. She sighed and shook her head, although there was a smile on her face as she did so.

"Oh, little bear. What will we ever do with you? You know how much I like moccassins!"

Yes, that was the story. Although I may have gotten some of the wording wrong, I hope I got the point across. I'll leave you that to ponder over for the rest of the week, for now I'm off to go scientifically study some more of those mushrooms while listening to my scientific collection of Led Zeppelin records.

Fare Thee Well,
--- Uncle Travelling Matt.