I've told my tales to so many people since I've been home that it's no longer unusual for me to go to a party and end up listening to someone retelling one of them to a third party while I listen on. They aren't co-opting it as their own and they're often the more interesting stories that they're retelling so it's not like I can fault them on either of those counts. I think the only real problem I have with this new found happenstance is that they tell it differently than I do. Not even worse necessarily...just different. But it's MY traveling story! Maybe I'm being selfish or arrogant but I want to tell it with my nuances, I want the pauses to be where I've practiced putting the pauses over countless retellings. Words have power and one word out of place changes all of the connotations! It's well chosen words that help tell the stories between the words...and I can't pretend I'm the world's greatest story teller but I've had a lot of practice telling these particular stories. Bah, rant over.