During one of the sessions at today’s GoGreen Conference the audience was asked to turn to a stranger and tell her a story that’s told and retold in our family about one of our family members. I turned to Lisa Watson, of Cupcake Jones fame, and told her the following story which I’ve been asked to retell here:
Before heading into surgery for testicular cancer my father-in-law said to the nurse, “I sure wish I would have bought that boat.”
“What boat’s that?” she asked politely.
“The one I looked at last weekend.”
(pause)
“Because I won’t have the balls to do it tomorrow.”
Lisa Watson and I had a good laugh, and when the speaker asked audience members to tell the story that had been told to them, she recounted my father-in-law’s story. There was a brief pause before the room exploded in laughter.
The point of the exercise, for those who are interested, is that a two-minute story tells you a lot about the subject of the story. I could have told you, “My father-in-law was one of the funniest men I’ve ever known, even when life threw him curves,” but you wouldn’t remember me or my father-in-law, nor would you know as much about him as you do from the story.
And you know you’ll retell it and remember it for a very long time.
Ah ha ha ha ha ha! Man I wish I had been in the Studio Theater for that one! Really great to me you yesterday! Thank you for all your tweeting at the conference! I’ll shoot you an email, since I never got you one of my cards.
Bethany
One of my favorite moments of the day….
Thanks for sharing your story and your father in law’s sense of humor with me and everyone else.
XO
It was great meeting you, Bethany. I look forward to hearing from you.
OMG, Lisa! I could hardly believe you stood up and told the story! My father-in-law would be so proud. (He would, really!)
It was fun hanging out and getting to know you better yesterday.