Sunday Griot: The Fox And The Stork

Once upon a time, the animals got along much better than they do today. That doesn’t mean they didn’t eat each other, of course, but they would sometimes get together like civilized creatures to enjoy each others’ company. Kind of like the Chuck Jones cartoon where when the whistle blew at 5:00 PM, the coyote would knock off trying to steal the sheep and the sheepdog would stop beating the living daylights out of the coyote, and they would punch out at the time clock and say “Goodbye” and “See you tomorrow.”

So at any rate, one day Fox decided he was going to invite Stork over for dinner. Fox prepared a well-chilled vichysoisse for his guest, who sat down to eat, only to discover that Fox was something of a trickster. He had placed the soup into a shallow bowl, and while he could easily lap the soup out of the bowl with his tongue, Stork was reduced to staring that the soup with a sad look on his face. His beak was far too long to be able to dip into the bowl, and he could no more drink the soup than you can scratch your ear with your elbow.

“What’s the matter?” Fox said, a big grin on his sly face. “I’m sorry if the soup isn’t to your liking.”

Stork, being a gracious guest, murmured some vague acquiescence,

Two or three days later Fox got an invitation from Stork to a dinner party at Stork’s house. Now Fox had been rather rude to Stork in his trick, but to not show up at Stork’s house after Stork had visited him would have been a major faux pas. So, Fox accepted the invitation and appeared on the designated night.

Stork’s house smelled delicious. He had spent the entire day preparing a vegetable consomme, and Fox’s mouth watered. Imagine Fox’s surprise, then , when Stork appeared with two large glasses full of consomme, like champagne flutes but much longer. Just the right length, in fact, for Stork to put his beak into the glass and drink the consomme, almost like sipping through a straw. Fox of course was left to just look and smell, since he couldn’t even get his snout into the glass.

“What’s the matter?” Stork asked, a look of mock concern on his face. “Oh, I’m sorry if the soup isn’t to your liking. But, I won’t apologize for the dinner.”

What goes around comes around.