STERLING, Va. — Well-meaning local mother Marla-Sue Crenna reportedly left a record-breaking lull in the story she was in the middle of telling as she attempted to get all the details correct, exasperated sources confirmed.
“I know it was either a Tuesday or a Saturday…Or if it wasn’t either of those it was a Wednesday. But, then again, it was around 7:15, which is when I typically go to Zumba, so then it couldn’t have been a Wednesday,” said Crenna, still searching in vain as if it were of any importance. “Oh! Or wait, now…could that have been the week Zumba was canceled because the room was double booked! But it was most certainly 7:15, or, well gosh, even 7:45, now that I think about it. Hmmm. One moment, let me ask your stepfather, he might know, he’s good with these things.”
Family members being told the story report exceeding frustration with Crenna’s almost pathological desire to get the details right.
“I’ve tried telling her over and over that the exact date and time of day doesn’t usually matter when you’re telling a story, especially the kind she tells. I mean, ‘Tuesday or Saturday?’ What do I care?! Those are so far from each other!” said Crenna’s daughter Amelia, visiting from college. “She already took 15 minutes drumming up the who and the where, I’ll be back on campus by the time she hits the when. This should be a two-minute anecdote, that’s shaping up to be feature length!”
Storytelling and Folklore Professor Dudley Doherty indicated that a need for specificity is quite common in the parent anecdote.
“Oh my, yes, there’s a long history of parents finding it necessary to get every detail in an anecdote correct. In fact, if you go back as far as the Paleolithic age, you can even see it in the cave drawings parents were doing. These long, blank ‘pauses’ between etchings of mammoths, and even ones where the mammoths are crossed out and replaced with a bird after they’d second-guessed themselves,” said Doherty. “It’s quite fascinating, especially speaking as a recent parent myself. In fact, did I say the Paleolithic before? I think it may have…yeah, it may have been the Mesolithic. No, Paleolithic is correct…although, wait a minute…”
Several hours later, it was revealed that the anecdote in question was actually just a plot synopsis of an “Abbott Elementary” episode she had enjoyed.