One of my top 5 favorite movies of all times is Big Fish. I think I love it so much because I relate so well to the main character.......I tend to exaggerate a bit......just a little bit.
This movie is about a man who is dying and his son is visiting him. The Dad shares these amazing stories of his life but the son doesn't believe them. He thinks his Dad is lying and he's pretty ticked off because he believes that all his life his Dad has been lying to him . He just wants to know his Dad and he keeps getting all these BIG FISH stories and wacky wierd stories of events and characters that are too wierd to be true. The Dad dies and low and behold all the characters from the stories his Dad told are at the funeral. Maybe not quite as the son pictured them.....but they're all there! The stories were all TRUE!!
I absolutely love telling stories. I love telling stories of events of my life or other peoples lives for that matter!. I reinact events, I use foreign accents and just the right facial expressions to get the story across......and yes....sometimes I exaggerate a little bit. Lately my kids have been busting me and kind of wrecking my stories. I'll have a captive audience of friends.....I'll be in the middle of a story....they're all watching me, hardly breathing, looking shocked, or amused or whatever I want them to be when right in the middle one of my kids would go " No you didn't. " or " There weren't that many" or " They didn't say it like that"......ARGH!!!!
I've actually had to sit my kids down and tell them to stop doing that.
"But Mommy, you're lying!" they exclain loudly, tears collecting at the corners of their soulfull eyes. ( see? Doesn't that sound better?)
"Not really lying," I reply." I'm embellishing and improving the story.You see, there's a story and then there's a STORY. People want the STORY."
Don't get me wrong......I really don't lie. I tell the story and sometimes it just seems exaggerated by my sheer enthusiasm. My enthusiasm for telling the story sometimes makes the story better. I mean really would you like to hear about how it was raining and I forgot to close the car windows or would you rather hear about how it was absolutely pouring, in fact it seemed the rain was horizontal it was so windy. I heard the snap of branches just over my head on several occasions and the kids were pale despite their summer tans. We were almost at the door when I remembered I had left the car windows open. God help me, I had to go back! Just then there was a blinding light and instantly the deafening crack of thunder....simultaneous which meant the strike of lightening was within feet of our car........anyway, you get my drift?
Now my kids would go....." we weren't pale........it wasn't simultaneous....blah blah blah"
I think I've had a pretty interesting life and I do have some good stories. I just make them better for YOU the listener.
