Telling Stories

This is not my family. It's a free stock photo, but it works with the theme.

“In my day, we had to walk miles in the snow to school...”

Thus begins the age-old joke about parents’ childhood stories. For decades, kids have been rolling their eyes at all the “back in my day” lectures that ensue when they complain about something they think is hard.

I don’t think I ever heard this kind of story in my family. Maybe because we all like to complain so much it’s not something we’d lecture anyone about. More likely, it’s because we love laughing even more than griping. My favorite family stories are not ones about hardship (even the exaggerated kind), but ones about ridiculous situations, clever pranks, or humorous – in retrospect at least – accidents.

For example, when my mom was a little girl, she went with her family to a drive-in restaurant. She got a corndog, took a bite, and discovered that it was green because of freezer burn. Of course, this was pretty traumatic for her younger self. I think it’s hilarious.

I also love the stories of travels gone wrong, like when my mom’s family accidently brought up the end of a parade on a road trip, or my parents couldn’t get a hotel room because of a goat-roping convention.

Add to that the unique experiences of life in the country, my dad’s many school pranks, strange things seen on TV or around town, and you’ll have a good sense of what some of our conversations are like.

I don’t have as many years to draw on, but I still have some funny memories to fill an awkward silence. Such as when I filled a water-bottle with Sprite, and it exploded out of the pop-up straw… in the middle of a sermon at youth group.

The thing a lot of these stories have in common is that they weren’t funny at the time, or had unfunny consequences. We only laugh when looking back at them. (Except for the Sprite one. Everybody laughed. Every. Body.)

I’m often amazed at how incredible human memory is. We remember things so clearly, yet so differently. The facts don’t change over time, but our perspective does.

When something goes wrong, we react negatively. That negativity can stay with the memory for a while. Then we live more of life. We see others make plenty of embarrassing mistakes or end up in ridiculous situations, and we get in plenty more ourselves. As time goes by, we realize the most ridiculous thing about the memory is the negativity we are still holding onto. The best thing we can do is – to loosely paraphrase the (in)famous kitchen plaque – live, laugh, learn.

When the story we tell ourselves about life changes, so does the story we tell others. Being able to laugh at yourself is probably one of the biggest lessons in life. Not only does it make your life more enjoyable, but it improves your reputation as a conversationalist and storyteller. It takes you from the crotchety-sounding “back in may day…” to the enthusiastic “The craziest thing happened to me…” that puts your listeners on the edge of their seats, ready to fall on the floor laughing.

I've had this post in my drafts for a while, and the holiday season seemed like a good time to finally use it. This Thanksgiving and Christmas, make the dinner table conversation nostalgic and fun.