When I was very young someone told me an unwritten story. As I remembered it, the story went like this:

Long, long ago in a quiet and small village, there lived a lazy couple in a huthouse. The couple were so poor that, when they were able to eat one nice meal, they did not know where their next meal would come from. One day the husband decided to go to work and he went to work for a rich landlord. In payment he received wheat flour – just enough for one meal for him and his wife. He came home with the flour, gave the flour to his wife and asked her to make a meal out of it. The wife was happy with the flour, for which the husband had worked very hard all day. The wife started to cook the meal. She made dough out of all the flour and cooked three pita breads.

After the cooking was done they sat down to eat, but here began their biggest struggle as to who should get to eat two breads. The husband said to his wife, “I worked so hard all day long for this, therefore I should get to eat two.” The wife said to her husband, “I am the one who did the cooking so I should get to eat two.” Again the husband said to his wife, “You eat one, I will eat two. “ But the wife said, “No.” She said, “You eat one I will eat two.” This argument went on and on until late into the night, but neither one was ready to settle for one bread and the difference was not resolved. The reason they had all these arguments and struggles was because they didn’t know how to share. They got tired and sleepy with the arguments so they said to each other, “Let’s go to bed without eating the bread.” They agreed and went to sleep with one condition, that tomorrow whoever woke up last would get to eat two breads. The next day came and the morning went by without either one waking up or getting up. Each of them knew very well that the one who got up first should have to settle with one bread so each was hoping the other would get up first, but neither got up, so everything remained silent.

While they were still sleeping in the huthouse with the door closed, some neighbors began to wonder what had happened to the lazy couple. From the couple’s house the neighbors did not see smoke rising, the usual sign in the lives of the villagers when people wake up early in the morning – first thing they do is build a fire. Everyone in the neighborhood began to speculate what might have happened to the couple so all the neighbors went to the couple’s house and they broke the door down and inside they found the couple sleeping without any sign of life so everybody who went there agreed that the couple was dead and they made necessary arrangements to cremate the couple’s bodies. The villagers took the couple’s bodies to the cemetery and put them on the funeral pyre. From the heat of the fire the wife woke up and screamed out first, saying, “I will eat one,” and jumped out of the fire. And then the husband loudly screamed and said, “I will eat twoooooo.”

The couple ran back to the their huthouse and started to eat the one and the two breads from the previous night.All the villagers were shocked by this event. They didn’t know what was going on. Later the lazy couple explained to their concerned neighbors what had happened the previous night. The couple thanked the concerned neighbors because it was their sympathy that made them stay alive. From that day on the villagers made it a rule for everyone: never to prepare edibles that must be counted.