It Is About Telling A Better Story

When people ask me why I am thinking about moving from an Android to an iPhone I tell them it is about telling a better story and I hear that iPhones take better pictures.

I tell them it is because I don’t want to rely upon the words of another to determine whether I think the iPhone is better than my Droid. If they push harder for details I send them to read my guest post at Carolyn’s blog and then I overwhelm them with 985,456 pieces of fact/opinion.

It Is About First Impressions

It is Saturday morning and I am wondering why I am sitting on the sidelines of a soccer field at a time that is so early not even the sun is ready to be awake.

My sunglasses are on my face and I have a pair of earbuds in my ears waiting to share some soft sounds that will send me back to the land of slumber.

The game isn’t supposed to start for a bit and I am thinking a wise man would still be in bed but a smart one will catch some zzzz wherever he is at.

Eyes closed, body relaxed I am a three count away from snoring my way into some amazing dream when the interruption comes. The mother behind me is complaining to a friend about how bad Common Core math is and though I am usually good at tuning things out she has the kind of voice that it challenging.

Read that last line as being kinder than saying she has the kind of voice that makes leaf blowers and vacuum cleaners pleasant to listen to.

“Everyone knows that Common Core is junk. It is completely useless and we are stuck with it because some dumb politician wanted to get elected.”

I open my eyes and look to either side of me to see if there is a good place to move my chair because I don’t want to have to listen to this throughout the game.

My caffeine free for the moment brain tells the legs to stand up and walk us over to grab a cup of coffee. “She won’t talk through the game and some black gold in a cup will make her sound more intelligent.”

The legs tell our brain they are happy to help us get a coffee but says if we really believe that will make her sound smarter we are fooling ourselves.

“I failed Algebra twice but if I had to learn math with Common Core I might have failed it twice more.”

Something about the last line intrigues me and I decide coffee can wait because this woman is providing the kind of material that talk show hosts, comedians and bloggers would pay good money for.

Curiosity gets the best of me and I turn and ask this woman which one of the players is her son.

“None of them, my friend’s son plays on the team. I am here because we are going to walk around the park while he plays.”

When she asks me why I want to know I tell her I heard her speaking about Common Core and was curious to see who it was. She tells me she hopes I wasn’t involved in it because it is a huge mess.

Since she is so forward with her opinion I consider asking her if she is really qualified to make that call. If she failed Algebra twice while being taught the ‘old way’ it is hard not to wonder if a different way would have been better.

But I don’t say anything because I am not really interested in having a discussion with a stranger about something, especially when she has already convinced me she doesn’t know much about what she is talking about.

It Is About Telling A Better Story

It is possible I have misjudged the woman. I didn’t sleep well and my sunny disposition isn’t quite so bright. It is not her fault that she has a voice that sounds like nails on a chalkboard.

When someone starts a conversation by peppering it with declarations of opinion disguised as fact I ask questions. It is not because I think the world is filled with people who are trying to hoodwink me into believing something untrue but because people make arbitrary choices and decisions and then pretend they are logical.

Sometimes they really are and sometimes they aren’t.

But we don’t always notice the inconsistencies because when you tell a better story people are less likely to question you and more likely to accept what you are saying as being fact.

It is part of why I am probably going to make the move to the iPhone. I want to speak from personal experience about the phone and because I want a better camera.

Better camera equals better pictures.

Better picture equals better stories.

Better stories equals more engaged readers.

Or at least that is the theory.

Maybe I should come up with a formula or theory to share with you. I didn’t fail Algebra. I got an ‘A’ first semester and a ‘B+’ second but there is a reason why I am a writer and not a rocket scientist but we’ll save that for a different day.