intruder alert

The other day two men tried to break into my friends' apartment while two of them were there.  William, one of the roommates who was not there, mentioned this offhandedly.

"WHAT?"  That is me speaking, as anyone with a passing acquaintance with William could probably infer.  William's speech could very rarely be transcribed using all caps.

"Yeah."

"WHY?  WHEN? What did they want? What happened? Did they call the police? Did the police get there in time? Did they catch them?"

"Yup."

"YOU DIDN'T ANSWER MY OTHER QUESTIONS!"

"Oh, and it turns out one of them was [another friend]'s brother.  And he had a stun gun or something."

"WHAT?  EXPLAIN!!"

"I dunno, I think that's mostly it."

William, I concluded, is terrible at telling stories - although it must be said that withholding that last little fact made for a nice twist ending, very clever, sneaky bastard, etc.  So we went to the apartment and I went straight to the source - the friend, Patrick, who saw it all happen and called the cops.

"Yeah, somebody rang the doorbell and I looked out and didn't know him.  So then he left.  But then I saw somebody trying to break in, so I called the cops."

In despair - what does it look like when you see somebody break in? Who were they? What were they carrying? What were you thinking? What did the cops say? - I turned to our friend Annie, who took over the story-telling with an epic, action-packed, gesture-filled, dialogue-heavy narrative that, while occasionally inaccurate (Patrick was the prime witness, after all, and occasionally corrected her) had all the human drama the boys' versions lacked.  There was her, blissfully unaware as Patrick dialed 911 and watched a screwdriver stabbing at the deadbolt; there was Patrick, running outside to try to get a good look at the fleeing would-be intruders, an act that seemed to me extraordinarily stupid; there were cops, shouting "POLICE!  DOWN!" just as the script would call for, there were perps giving false names, wielding odd weapons, seeking revenge on supposedly cuckolding younger brothers.  It was a much more satisfying narrative.

I will not proceed from here to some cockamamie argument about female superiority in storytelling, although I've presented as much evidence as many pop evolutionary psychologist regularly provide in their books.  I hate evolutionary psychology so much.  So much.  I don't usually waste energy actively hating (pseudo)scientific disciplines but I can't help it.  So much hate.  I am derailing myself.

My point was simply to support a writing-related assertion: the truth is not enough.