Kids often tell great tall tales

As a middle school student, I hear a lot of, well, interesting stories. Sometimes it’s obvious when people are stretching their adventures, but sometimes I have to remind myself that whatever I’m hearing probably isn’t true. I have always thought it is so comical to listen to those stories some kids can make up!

One kid told me he was at a beach resort once when a huge wave swept him off to sea. Soon his mother came on a fishing boat to save him. That one got me laughing – and he got the fishing boat part from the television, as I found out later. Even though it sounds very unbelievable, I noticed that kids have found a way to put in just enough details to make it sound very real.

Another story one of my friends told me was that he was messing with firecrackers when it broke his neighbor’s window. He says he was arrested because everyone thought it was a gun he was using. I thought this sounded a little too serious to be true.

I even hear stories from my own parents that I doubt are true. My mom says she had a fever once when she was a child and started hallucinating. She looked out the window and saw some Native Americans dancing around a pole. My dad says that when he was a kid, everyone wanted to touch his backpack. So, he put some technical stuff in it so that whenever a kid touched it, they would get a small shock.

Even if some of these stories aren’t true, I think they still make excellent tales. Maybe someday I might be able to stretch things well enough to make them sound believable!