Travels

Traveling -- it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.

~ Ibn Battuta

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I agree with this, but I also think that you should be able to pull stories from your life when you aren't traveling. I heard someone say one time that things either go well or they become great stories. Yes. However, complaining about something is not the same as making it a good story. 

I could complain that our host was very curt with us when we arrived on a recent adventure. I could say the person was cranky and impatient and complained and did not make us feel particularly welcome when we arrived.

OR

I could say...

When we arrived, Lily was afraid to go down the steps of the ferry to get off the boat. A stranger tried to help by pushing Lily from behind. That was not helpful and in fact Lily backed up and tried to squeeze out of her harness. I went back up the steps and had Lily sit and wait until all of the noisy camping people and their squirrelly children got off the boat with their supplies which had been loaded onto the ferry from the back of a U-Haul. Literally a full U-Haul of camping stuff, clothes, and food for about 25 people. 

Anyway, Leslie helped me and we were able to coax Lily down the steps. We each took a load up the dock and there were a few bags left. Due to my poor packing, two of them were ridiculously heavy. I came up to meet Leslie and our host. As I bent over to adjust my grip on the bags, our host said, "You don't need to set those down. You're going to carry them over there," and she pointed across the parking lot to one of the further spaces. 

I grumbled, "I DID need to set them down to get a better grip," but I'm not sure she heard me. Probably for the best that she didn't.

Once we had loaded everything in the back of the vehicle, I said, "This isn't going to block your view, is it?" She responded, "I'm not driving. YOU are!"

See the difference between complaining and a story. I mean this story is a bit of a complaint, but there's more to it than JUST the complaining. 

(pause)

Okay, maybe this isn't an example of something not going according to plan becoming a GOOD story. I'll work on. This is just a first draft.