Or so I  thought a few days ago when the number of clean coffee mugs was going down at a rate that suggested a  instant merge of water, detergent, a dish brush and some elbow grease was needed . (I even advertised my upcoming post as my status in a well-known online community as I was convinced that building pressure from more fronts than one would surely result in a text (the other front being myself) as I usually thrive under pressure.)

As I sat down with the intention to write (or rather finish yet another batch of beginnings) about recent events that have occupied my mind, I noticed that the subjects that really got me going were once again, yes you guessed it, cleaning and blogging.

“Is that it? Is that all I can write about? Blogging and cleaning! Cleaning and blogging?” I was shouting at myself when I came to a halt with the realization of the most chilling kind  anyone can experience: I have become  my father.

My father, like me apparently, has two genres of stories he tells. The first genre usually takes place in a factory where he worked as a “process designer / engineer” of sorts (the title does not translate really) and usually those stories beside being full of eccentric personae, that I have never met but have heard of so many times that I feel like they are almost family, are also full of technical details and minute process descriptions. These stories, given the right mindset of the receiving end, can sometimes be somewhat entertaining, whereas the second genre stories seldom are and indeed are not meant to be such. I call these narrations “the dangerous situations in traffic”-stories.

“The dangerous situations in traffic” – stories are a specific breed of stories that are very much place, time and situation bound. Obviously, the plot is simple, and always the same: my father has witnessed a dangerous situation in traffic or has almost been part one due to negligence or foolhardiness of a fellow driver (or pedestrian etc).

Place and the situation where these stories are told are always the same: upon collecting me from the railway station when I have come to visit my parents. The forte of these stories is in the repetition.

The first time I hear of “the dangerous situation in traffic” is when we are sitting in the car at the railway station parking lot waiting our turn to get out. The second time the story is summarized, is when there is a situation that bears some resemblance to the original. (Really, there does not have to be much in common to trigger the words from my fathers´ lips.) The third time the tale is told is when we actually pass the place where the situation took place, this time explained very thoroughly and in detail. And finally, the fourth round of the story begins when we get home and my father repeats it to my mother. (But this does not happen before my mother has asked me (while am taking my jacket off) “how was the trip” and “was the train full? Did you get a seat?”)

(I have been hearing these traffic stories, well basically the one story for a good fourteen years. On average I visit my parents once a month. Fourteen times twelve times four is..what…six hundred seventy two. That´s how many times at least I´ve heard of dangerous situations in traffic. You´d think that make me terrified of driving a car! You are right, it absolutely does, am terrified every time I´m in the same car with my father when he´s driving. Wouldn´t you be, with that track record of almosts. The funny thing is, he taught me how to drive, but that´s another story.)

The similarities do not end here. We are alike in the way we tell stories:  we fill our stories with unessential (albeit interesting?) bits and pieces of information and embellishment, we rarely go straight to the point (they call it the storytelling for a reason!) and our stories generally are relatively lengthy to say the least. Oh, we also stray from the topic easily as the story we are telling usually has its´roots or is connected to another story and in order for the listener to be fully able to appreciate (or understand) the story, those must be incorporated in the thread (hence the length). We  can come up with quite concise and clever one-liners (or two), but that´s not the same.

When it comes to storytelling, there is no middle ground. It´s nothing or all. Like father, like daughter, I guess.

post scriptum

I would like to add that I have only the utmost love and respect for both my parents that truly are good and funny people that have lot of interesting stories of their own). Even though they do drive me crazy regularly (father especially, mother not that much). I would also like to say, that my father is a good driver even though he sometimes confuses his build with that of an owl (rotating head, you see where I´m going with this? Head, traffic, situations etc).