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Here Say is a project in community storytelling. We travel to a new place each week and ask people to share true stories about things we all experience: love, family, learning, etc.Click here for a full-screen or mobile-ready map.00000178-cc7d-da8b-a77d-ec7d2fad0000

Here Say: Your Stories about Humor, Told Downtown

Mariah Escarcega
Emma Nicholas and Rebecca Greenway
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KBIA

Here Say is a project in community storytelling. We travel to a new place each week and ask people to share true stories about things we all experience: love, family, learning and more. To see where we've been, check out our interactive map. And to hear your favorite stories from last season, you can find our free podcast on itunes.

 We met Mariah Escarsega, who told us about the people who influence her sense of humor.

"I think I have my mom’s humor which is just like extreme sarcasm and laughing at all your own jokes so other people think its funny. That’s how my humor roles."

Mariah told us how her night had taken a turn for the worse.

 

"We went to go get coffee at - what’s that place called - Lakota? LAK -Something like that and I was about to walk out gracefully, strutting my stuff, you know, trying to be like cute and I bumped into this table and knocked this person’s books all over the floor and awkwardly had to pick them all up for them and then dropped them all again and then awkwardly had to pick them back up again while everyone stared and laughed at me. It was cute though. I mean like I did it gracefully so I don’t know if anyone could see but I did a hair flip... in my brain."

 

Wayne Bline
Credit Emma Nicholas and Rebecca Greenway / KBIA
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KBIA
Wayne Bline

Wayne Blinne loves that deep,  belly laugh that gets him to relax when feeling tense. He shared with us a story of when he got a laugh at his brother’s expense.

"My brother lives out in the country and there was a wild animal. Do you know what an armadillo is? Okay, they’re in - this is in Southern Missouri and he was up by his house and so he was shooting at it and, I guess it’s some sort of poetic justice for shooting at a helpless little armadillo but  - the bullet ricocheted and hit his pickup truck. That happened today."
 

Abdul K
Credit Emma Nicholas and Rebecca Greenway / KBIA
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KBIA
Abdul K

We met Abdul K, who shared a story about a prank he likes to play on people he’s walking by.

 

"Like being next to someone who’s talking on the phone, and just answering the questions that they’re asking on the phone so they get paranoid.

 

I did it with a person who was walking by and he was like, he was like slowly walking, he wasn’t like too fast so I thought, ‘Well that’s the best surprise for him.’ 

 

So he was walking and I‘m like, well, he was like saying, 'Are we meeting up today or are we like meeting up today or tonight?' And I’m like, 'Yeah, we are meeting up tonight.' And he’s like, 'Where we meeting at?' And I’m like, 'Yeah, we should go to a restaurant or a bar.' And he’s like, 'Excuse me, sir, are you answering my questions?' And I’m like, 'No, but I’m just on the phone.' And he’s like, 'No, I see you. You are answering my questions' and I’m like, 'No, no, I’m just on the phone.'

 

Taylor Worthington
Credit Emma Nicholas and Rebecca Greenway / KBIA
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KBIA
Taylor Worthington

Taylor Worthington told us how he sometimes is not the ideal wing man.

"Sometimes I feel like I really just have to go for it and make things super awkward for my friends depending - if one of them is trying to hit on a cute girl that’s like prime.

 

Well, my buddy, Kurt Van Wort over there, sometimes, at the bar, he has a rash. He doesn’t know about it until he starts talking to somebody but then I have to go and remind him of it, and ask if he has his medication for it and things like that."

 

Sara Shahriari was the assistant news director at KBIA-FM, and she holds a master's degree from the Missouri School of Journalism. Sara hosted and was executive producer of the PRNDI award-winning weekly public affairs talk show Intersection. She also worked with many of KBIA’s talented student reporters and teaches an advanced radio reporting lab. She previously worked as a freelance journalist in Bolivia for six years, where she contributed print, radio and multimedia stories to outlets including Al Jazeera America, Bloomberg News, the Guardian, the Christian Science Monitor, Deutsche Welle and Indian Country Today. Sara’s work has focused on mental health, civic issues, women’s and children’s rights, policies affecting indigenous peoples and their lands and the environment. While earning her MA at the Missouri School of Journalism, Sara produced the weekly Spanish-language radio show Radio Adelante. Her work with the KBIA team has been recognized with awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and PRNDI, among others, and she is a two-time recipient of funding from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.