Bad Opening Lines

Back in November during the one weekend I had off for at least six weeks on either side of it, I got on a plane and flew 600 miles south of us. My brother kept telling me that my 95 year-old grandfather was fading fast and that if I wanted to see him, I should do it. I kept getting this message from various members of my family until finally Z and I decided to go. So down we went. Since we were already heading south, we decided we should visit my maternal grandmother who also lives nearbye-ish. It'd been awhile since I'd seen her, and she was always saying that we never visited. So we went. And we stayed for one night. We jumped up and did the dishes on queue. We cleaned up the $50 of steak her dog threw up. We stripped the sheets from our bed and started the wash machine before we left. We did or duty, and because we both had to work on Monday, we couldn't stay long. But we did it.

The History Teller

We have all run into that old woman in the grocery store. "When I was young," launches a thousand words, strung together about days of yore. But not your days of yore. Nor the person next to you. And after the story ceases there is kind of no place to go. Yeah, you can ask them more about that history but because it's a personal history the dynamic is question (you) answer (them.) It is not an actual conversation. And you realize that pretty quickly and are eaten by awkwardness. That awkwardness illuminates the trouble with this trait: it isolates the teller. They feel they are *sharing* something with you but really they are removing themselves from you even if just a little.

Half of my family is story tellers. The other half is 100% not. If you're not careful, paternal family reunions can be one Homer-esque telling of the same stories you heard the last time you got together. As kids I remember LOVING these stories. As an adult I cringe. They leave nothing to actually converse about. It's like attending a lecture of one. On one side Dad at the podium. At the other side you in a soft folding chair watching the wall clock.