I went to DIY Stories tonight, as a bystander. Yes, I resolved, before going, that I wasn’t going to tell a story.
There was a beautiful and intriguing woman present. About my age. Much nicer skin.
With a man about half her age. About Emma’s age. Much more fur.
I was hoping the intriguing woman would rise, and tell us why she dresses so intriguingly. Clearly, she had been down some interesting paths, to wear such a beautiful silk skirt, and to tie her L-Word hair up so freshly in such a hippy-yet-not-hippy kind of scarf.
She did. She told the most amazing yarn, about living as a hippie in Hawaii, and running into some trouble, but then being saved miraculously.
I cannot do justice to her story here.
During the break, I again tried to get Gwenn’s mom to tell some stories. She would start, then if Gwenn came by or she got interrupted in any way, she would retreat. In the hallway, she revealed that she would love to get up and tell stories, but she couldn’t do it, because her husband was there. I thought she was kidding, but she wasn’t. She said that “stories from her wilder times” make him agitated. Which of course made me want some of her stories all the more!
From another woman present, I learned that there’s a web site, it’s something like otherpeoplesstories.com — only that’s not it, I checked. If anyone can find this, I’m interested. It’s where people go to write down stories that were told to them by other people. I have some stories from my friend Bill that I always long to tell, as they’re so colorful, so populated by dangerous people. But I don’t tell his stories, cuz they’re his, and I have a few dangerous people in my past. Like Manny. But he’s dangerous in a way I don’t like recalling. Bill’s bad guys live out in the swamps and raise boars, and drink a lot, and bandy pistols in their kitchens, while telling Bill that if he ever gets any ideas about the dude’s wife, Bill will be very, very, sorry.
A dude told the real-life story of robbing a bank.
A lifelong fantasy of mine, told just like that. By living through the fantasy via the storyteller, it’s now, more than ever, utterly clear to me that I will never, ever rob a bank.
He said the FBI guy was really nice.
Other tidbits of mention. The banks don’t really care about missing money. The Feds, he said, replace monies routinely stolen from tills. Thus, it’s not directly in the ba
Another tidbit. I’d always known that, for safety reasons, bank tellers pretty much are trained to obey robbers. What I didn’t know is that it’s also a liability issue. According to the guy at DIY Stories, banks want to cover their butts nine ways to Sunday. So, if the robber says, “stand on your head or I’ll shoot these people!”, then the teller will likely stand on her head. Otherwise, the robber might actually shoot a bunch of people, because he’s upset the teller didn’t stand on head; and then customers — or the surviving relatives thereof — will sue. So, the teller does as told, not just for safety, but to cover bank’s butt.
Knowing these facts is what led to the robbery that this guy shared with us. His friend worked at a Wells’ Fargo, and saw the utter dearth of security measures–he said they had a black-and-white cam which would barely reveal the gender of the person being videotaped–and he and his buddy thought it would be a great idea for him to come in, with a note telling him to fill his backpack with cash.
Oh, the reason the FBI knew they were lying? His friend filled the backpack way too fast. He also said the FBI agent was a very nice guy.
Well, I can see that I’d like to just re-tell the fellow’s story. But that’s his story. My story is that I spent the evening listening to other people’s stories, and it was a soothing balm.
If you live in Portland, you can go to DIY Stories every 2nd Wednesday. More here:
http://www.vanadia.com/diystories
Love,
Emily