While I cannot verify the veracity of this details of this story, I can say that it was most likely told to me as factual.
On a trip to the far eastern regions of Turkey, my friend and his traveling companion, after long and tedious hours of driving, grew rather famished and began to hunt for some roadside restaurant. Eventually, they found a place which Americans would consider an equivalent to a "greasy spoon."
For the benefit of those who have never been to Turkey I will attempt to describe the typical diner of this sort.
The proprietor, a paunchy mustached man, sits at his podium like desk, with his bottle of cologne and dish of cloves. At the rear, in front of the open heath oven, a bare-armed "chef" waits expectantly for his order, flipping a larval pad of dough back and forth and sneaks regular drags from his cigarette. There is always a surplus of waiters. All of them seem to have lost the natural ability to smile. The teenage nephew of the owner who portrays your waiter likes to watch television and has the magical ability to transport himself anywhere in his mind.
On the wall, you'll find an aged mural of Mecca hangs, showing a great arch of marching white-toga-ed pilgrims revolving around a holy cube. The blue "evil eye" talisman covers all the pagan rites while the predictable print of Ataturk, somewhat faded, takes care of secularism. So, after a glance around, you chose a table from all the other empty ones and you sit in the white plastic chair that gives ominously like an overloaded pack animal.
The pide- a kind of Turkish pizza- was nothing to write home about but it did satisfy the immediate need. The ayran- a buttermilk concoction- was thick and rich and pleasantly sour.
"Excuse me," my friend asked the boy passing by. "Could you please bring me a toothpick?"
The boy waiter looked nervously back at the owner who, watching from the distance, half-stood.
"Let me ask." the boy told the confused patrons.
After some feverish whispering between the waiter and his boss, the owner stepped forward. " Yes, Can I help you?"
"We just asked for toothpicks."
"Ah," the owner said with a decidedly unhappy glare. "We used to offer those to our customers, but we stopped this practice."
"And.. why?"
"Yes, well, last summer we had some visitors here from the west of Turkey. Istanbul or Izmir. And like yourselves, they asked for toothpicks. I was quite happy to oblige."
There was a pregnant moment of silence. "We were shocked, however, to find that they had not bothered to put them back when they were finished."
That's the story as it was related to me many years ago. When my story-telling friend concluded, I asked him, "Is that true?" He nodded and then shrugged as Turks are wont to do. I have thought about this story many times, unable to be fully persuaded that it could ever have happened. I'd like to think I was the victim of some joke.
Still, as Mark Twain once said, there is a "dismal plausibility about it that took all the humor out of it."
Of all of Aesop's fables, I suppose my favorite is this one. Like many of his fables, it can be interpreted in variety of ways. A lesson in true hospitality?
According to an 
Practically anytime you turn on Turkish television you are bound to find yourself watching a Turkan Soray film. With her hypnotic eyes and classically beautiful looks, she has entranced audiences in Turkey for decades. Early in her career she starred in a new film literally every month. In 1961, she released 12 films, 1962, she starred in 13 films and the following year, she was seen in no less than 14 films. 
divorced and both daughters were raised by her mother. Through her landlords, who were the parents of another actress, Emel Yildiz,.Turkan was invited to Yesilcam, one of Turkey's major filmmaking studios. She made her film debut in 1960 at just 15 years old with the film Aşk Rüzgarı(The Wind of Love).
and international awards, including the Moscow Film Festival Grand Jury Prize iin1973 as well as 1999 Rome Film Festival, Honorary Award. 
After being encouraged by the media to step in, the Education Minister Nimet Çubukçu announced that “Nobody can be victimized over their apparel.” Çubukçu has halted the reassignment and sent two inspectors to Manisa to look into the issue. 
Meet Virgil Griffith. Born in Alabama in 1983, graduated from the Alabama School for Math and Science in 2002 and then attended the University of Alabama where he studied cognitive science in New College. Griffith transferred to Indiana University in 2004 but returned to graduate cum laude in Alabama in 2007. He is now a graduate student, studying computation and neural systems. All very impressive, I hear you say, but... 
problem. 
