big fish...

last week i was at a gathering at my mom's house...

during a conversation that included some tales of recent behavior of the boybarians, i said to the group in general i was considering military school for the duke...and i was explaining that unfortunately for me, the duke thought that it was a great idea!

to which one of my mom's friends says

"military school?...why that?"

"well, my parenting credo includes you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to start calling military schools..."

i thought it was funny, but she was just confused...because she believed me...

apparently my reputation had not preceded me...

we tell *stories* in my family...and sure, it may sound a lot like lying, but it's infinitely more creative not to mention more fun to tell a story than it is to just simply lie...

of course i'm not going to send my child to military school for any reason at all...i have never even considered the possibility...yet, to me it makes an amusing anecdote that i would fall into a time honored cliche so easily and *threaten* my child with military school...only for him to think it's a fine idea, and wants to know when he leaves!...

it becomes part of my story...

the same story that includes the tale of my birth as told by my father...the story goes that he was walking on the beach one day and that he was lonely...he looked down and saw two blue eyes peering out of the sand...so he began to dig, and he dug *me* up!...and then he had a daughter to walk on the beach with...

anyone who knows my father knows there's a million other stories where that one came from...big fish has nothing on that man...but the story my father tells of my birth is my favorite...

not so surprisingly, that's not the story my mom tells...

and my mom tells stories of her own...like the tale of the clown family that comes and takes little kids to live with them when they run off or run too far ahead...it's creepy...and i have to wonder, wouldn't a family of clowns taking you seem less creepy than your own grandma telling you they would and there wouldn't be anything she could do about it?...but, it's her story and she's sticking to it...and, she hasn't lost a grandchild yet...

she also told me the story of my *real* mom...apparently she is not my mom, and in fact my real mom is a bag lady living in paris...

so every mother's day i call her up and say "since my real mom is a bag lady in paris and i can't find her, happy mother's day"...

even more twisted and interesting is that my mother's story coupled with my father's story suggests that neither one of them want to claim any link to me genetically...

my younger sister is the queen of stories that all seem to fall into the *incredible but true* category...they are often long and involved, terribly maudlin, and always leave you laughing rather than crying...i can't tell you any because they are hers...and she tells them much better than i do, anyway...

but i can tell you one story she tells...a story that is about ME and that is NOT true...and after 25 years she still tells it and thinks it is as funny as the day she first MADE IT UP!...it's a story that involves an eight year old me, a lidded jar, and a fart...

and it comes as no surprise that it is a story she saves exclusively for telling with extreme relish when someone is either a) meeting me for the first time or b) in front of any remotely cute boy...and, as you can imagine, it's a real crowd pleaser...

in addition to that story, there are a few other stories floating around about me that also are NOT true...i can see how they may have evolved, and a few of them actually make me look much cooler and edgier (or more idiotic) than i really am...

but, alas, they are not true...i can't set the record all the way straight as this is a family show here, BUT i will say two things...

the first is that i did NOT get stopped for a suspected gun in my car at the border of texas and mexico...it was suspected drugs...whew, glad i cleared that up...(oh, and just so you know they don't perform cavity searches if they suspect weapons...they do however if they suspect drugs)...

and the harley davidson story is simply untrue...

it makes me wonder what stories my own children will tell when they are older...even now they play "once upon a time there was a boy..."...one of them will start and the other will add to it...they are little kid stories, short in length and very funny...the content coming from real life and their own imaginations...the best kind...

lately they are stories about a guy named "pickle freddy" who generally seems to be up to no good...he wears a sheriff's hat "only it's a modern sheriff's hat"...oh, and he's not a sheriff...he just wears the hat...

oddly enough, or not really so, "pickle freddy" reminds me an awful lot of a guy from my own childhood...a guy my aunt was once married to...the first time we met him he came to our house for a barbecue...and as he was getting out of the car, i saw that he was juggling a can of beer and a half drunk six pack held by the plastic ring...he was wearing nothing but old cut-off shorts and a cowboy hat with a sheriff's badge pinned to it...

this guy was the original "pickle freddy" if i ever met him...and it turns out that he too had spent a great deal of his life being "up to no good"...and even though it was long, long before the boybarians time, the "pickle freddy" i knew as a child has somehow survived, and has been re-incarnated into my own children's childhood...because i have no doubt that the stories that weave through my family, whether *real* or creatively embellished, have and will continue to become part of who my children are...

and when my own children ask how they were born, how they came to be *here*, they too will get a story...because how they both came to be is the most amazing, at times comedic even in it's horror, romantic, with death defying acts of bravery and loving leaps of faith, crazy, wonderful, and magical story of all...

x.