Burn Down The Disco, Hang The Blessed DJ, Because The Music That They Constantly Play, It Says Nothing To Me About Life

--"Panic", The Puppini Sisters (cover)

The official story about why I no longer have an antenna on my car is that I cannot stand people fiddling around with the music whilst in my car. I tell people I broke it off because a man's car should be an extension of a man's home--if a man can't listen to the music he wants to while in the confines of his vehicle, then what's the point of having favorite bands at all. I don't know--it's always amused people, it's always been a memorable anecdote, and it's a readily accepted explanation for what could have been a far more complex situation.

The truth is, though, that I backed my car out of my friend's driveway and in the process knocked off the antenna very handily. No, it wasn't my intention to do it. Nor did I have any guiding principle or just cause behind the action. It was a foolish set of circumstances that propelled the damage to the car and an even more foolish impetus for my wanting to complete the job.

Sufficed to say, a lot of the anecdotes I repeat again and again here have their basis in something more mundane, but, because of my love of the dramatic, I've spiced them up about. There's something about having an extraordinary explanation for a choice I've made rather than diddling the same old mundane excuse. It's much more silly and fun to tell people that I don't like ketchup with french fries because I don't eat foods that rhyme together (tomatoes with potatoes) rather than merely saying I don't like those particular two foods with one another. It's much more of a story to say that Brandy and I got lost together for six hours at Epcot whereby we proceeded to have an adventure by ourselves, rather than to say we were both scared witless and were about fifty yards from having any type of meaningful fun while touring the park. The truth is we didn't go around nonchalantly trying everything out because we wanted to. The truth is we went around because we were desperate to find our caretakers. Lastly, I think it makes for a much more engaging tale to say to people that I hiked with Breanne from Macon to Atlanta on a spur-of-the-moment impulsive decision rather than to say that we'd been thinking about it for awhile. So while it is true we hadn't exactly planned to do that that weekend, it's not like it came as a complete shock either.

I wouldn't say I would call it lying because there is enough truth in a lot of the explanations I give to make it sound plausible. I guess the real reason I've always been a fan of embellishment is the fact that when I go over what's happened in life, I want it to sound exciting. I want my stories to mean something. Everyone can say that they've lead an exciting life from time to time. But if their anecdotes don't bear it out, then is it really true?

I guess it's kind of like my aversion to listening to the radio and why people are so ready to believe that I broke my antenna off. I hate somebody else or something else dictating what I listen to, what I read, or who I am. Just because I have ordinary experiences doesn't mean I'm tied to being ordinary. Besides, people prefer the tale over the exact truth. Everyone tries to make their life shiny and new, rather than revel in the smallness of it all. Everyone tries to make their song stand out far from the maddening crowd of everyone else's. Everyone wants to make their song the most important song ever heard. Everyone wants their song to really mean something and say something to everyone. Everyone wants to feel important.

Why should I be any different?

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers