Nanabozhu’s Hawaiian Adventure Part V

Maui

The morning of their first day together, Pele’ and Nanabozhu were slumming with the mortals on their tour of the Big Island. They happened to run into Pele’s brother Maui at the Hilo Farmers Market.

Nanabozhu had to smile and knew he had met a kindred manidoo when he shook Maui’s hand in greeting and received an electric jolt! The sound of the “Super Joy Buzzer” going off in Maui’s hand accompanied it. The wicked grins the two gave each other as Nanabozhu quickly recovered from this small practical joke were reminiscent of those found on two wolves that had just happened to chance upon an unsuspecting chicken in an isolated barnyard. Pele’ rolled her eyes at Maui. “Here we go again.” she said.

What’s the first thing that happens when two tricksters get together? A competition! You didn’t need to hear them say that it was on, to see which one could out-trick the other before the day was done. So back and forth they went.

The day’s round was decided in favor of Nanabozhu. He ended the evening with a prank that occurred after their swim, at the open air public showers on the beach. Since the ocean water was salty, you felt better after you rinsed off before you went home. Nanabozhu quickly rinsed himself off first.

Maui was a little more persnickety and habitually used his patented “Maui’s Wowie Shampoo and Conditioner”. Maui lathered his hair up and proceeded to rinse out the shampoo. Just when he was about done, Nanabozhu picked up the shampoo from where Maui had set it down and squirted another dollop on top of Maui’s hair. Maui could not feel the addition because of the pressure of the water already sluicing down on his noggin.

Of course, the combination of the shower water and Maui’s rinsing action lathered Maui’s hair up again. With eyes closed to keep the shampoo from irritating, Maui could not see what was going on. Maui could only tell by feel that he still had shampoo in his hair. So he continued to try to rinse it out.

Now, the grinning Nanabozhu was amused to see that he had gotten away with this once and decided to see how many times he could get away with it again. Therefore, just when Maui was almost done, Nanabozhu would add another dollop. Unsuspecting Maui would obligingly lather up again.

Three, four, five times! Nanabozhu, who realized the need to be stealthy, was silently laughing so hard that his shoulders shook and tears came out of his eyes.

Rinse, lather…rinse, lather…rinse, lather, Maui! Six, seven, eight! By the end, Nanabozhu’s wheezing snickers were covered by sound of the shower. He was laughing so hard and trying not to make any noise that he had fallen down, was holding his stomach  and rolling around on the sand while Maui–blissfully ignorant–rinsed the last of the shampoo out of his hair.

“Boy, you sure do take a long time washing your hair!” Nanabozhu could barely get the words out straight as he jumped up and handed Maui a towel.

Maui eyed Nanabozhu askance as he dried off. “You have the look of the cat that ate the canary”.

Nanabozhu replied with an extremely innocent expression on his face. “Who me”?

Final score: Nanabozhu 42, Maui 41.

(To be continued)