The Art of Exaggeration

Always. Never. Ever. Forever. None. All. Exaggerators are much like true/false questions on exams. If we see any of the before-mentioned words, such as never, then the answer is likely to be false, just as the person's story is.

Know anyone like this? Does it really aid the story to exaggerate to a point of unbelievability? Sometimes, it's ridiculous. As a person is speaking to me, they'll state something like, "Man, and that test took forever." At this point, I carefully gaze about what they're doing, to check and see if they're still working on the exam, because if what they said is true, they wouldn't be finished with it yet.

Sometimes, it seems that certain people have about as little concept of time as dogs. If I walk outside to get the mail and only a minute has lapsed between the time I left the house and walked back in, the dogs will greet me like it had been a month, because, it seemed like "forever" to them. Some people seem to be similar to dogs in this area.

Numbers seem to enter the equation (story) on many occasions. Many believe that as the large numbers used in the story increases, so too will the impact of the story. "I told her like a million times that I didn't want to go eat at Runza, but still, she insisted." I highly doubt that occurred. Can you imagine someone actually repeating a phrase one million consecutive times? Whew. That's cause for going nuts. Heck, when a person repeats themselves more than three times, that's usually cause for a, "Shut up! I can hear you! I get the point! Now, stop saying that!" Can you imagine how someone would react to a person repeating a phrase 1,000,000 times? Loony bin, here we come!

It's even funnier when the same person switches quantities dealing with the same story. One minute, it's, "I told her like a million times that I didn't want to go eat at Runza, but still, she insisted." But, then, another friend sits down at the table and gets to hear the story, from the beginning. "Dude, I told her like a thousand times that I didn't want to go eat at Runza, but still, she insisted." I might then chime in and say, "I thought you said it was a million times." He'll respond with something like, "Whatever. Whatever it was, it was a ton!" It's not like I can tell a story about the final score of a football game being 28-24 one minute and then altering it to 17-10 the next. The word "always" is often times amusing, as well.

"We've always been like this, she and I. We've always loved each other." Again, I have to ponder and ask myself, "Okay, how long have they known one another? A year? So, one out of twenty-five years? How long have humans existed? Hmmm, always might be stretching it, just a tad."

I don't know that there is an art of exaggeration. That may have been sarcastic on my part. Go figure, right? The truth is that exaggeration is "always" a necessary tool when conversing with another, especially if the two individuals are politicians, it "never" gets to the point where it's so unbelievable, one could easily laugh, and it shall "forever" be used as a boost to our egos. Right guys?