Old Joke

I've been known to tell some yarns.

At the end of some of them, I've been asked to prove it.

Well, duh, I made it up can't prove it...

But before admitting it was a tall tale I'd toss out a "well my records were destroyed in the fire."

I may (now) be old, but I am not THAT old.

What's astonishing to me is how many people have heard of that fire, but don't know when it happened or whom it affected.  What's more, some who do can be mollified by saying, "no, the other fire."

I do try to get things to a point where I can say the story was bullshit...  I'm so very trying.

But sometimes the point of the bullshitting is to see how much you can get the listener to eat.

I wish I could recapture the entire vellum shortage story.  I had the audience's rapt attention as I spun that one.  I had answers, told with conviction, to any question and there were subplots as I "clarified" the situation.  But about half the people who heard this story live didn't hang around for the punch-line: That it was just a story.

They're either out there repeating the conspiracy or saying, "I knew this nutcase McThag..."