I’ve had this story bouncing around my head for a few days. I’d think about it and store it away in my mental filing cabinet for future reference. Thing is, that filing cabinet is notoriously unreliable, and I forgot it. Then I’d remember it, and try to tack a label onto it. But the idea is like the bar of soap in the shower – grab it for a second, and the force of your grab is what makes it pop from your grasp.
Stories with clear beginnings, tidy endings, and some sort of point of view or moral to make it bang around in the listeners’ heads for a while are rare. Mostly we have to fake it. I’ll try a story out on people, in a (mercifully) nano form, and listen to their reactions. Mostly, to be painfully honest (the pain is mine), I don’t even get through my story before someone starts talking about something else entirely. Which is itself a useful result, I suppose, if not ego-supporting.
- There’s the story of my dad and the bogus VCR bargain, which has the lesson that your parents are flawed human beings.
- There’s the story of Oleg in the bathtub, which I’ve used already. The lesson is what it takes to be an adult.
- There’s the story of being coerced into typing a letter to my grandmother when I was 12 and had nothing to say, in Hollywood. This is the story of appreciating your parents even at their worst.
But this story, I have such a hard time remembering it. When I do, by the time I get to a spot where I can record it, it’s gone. I know, smartphones… I’ll try again.