Not only is that a horrible thing to happen to a child on a class trip, it’s a horrible thing to tell a room full of nine year olds. My grandmother told me a graphic story about a roommate who lost an eye that has haunted me since.
Also, your edit made me wonder if I’m fundamentally dishonest, because it literally wouldn’t even occur to me to correct myself from the third to fourth grade while retelling an anecdote, even in person to close friends, unless it were about something with a date attached. I just figure that approximations are a part of life and it’s not that important, but I’m now asking myself if that’s the sort of thing I should correct and if I’ve been unintentionally (ish?) lying to everyone.
Edit: as evidence, I realized that I fucking did it in this comment. It was a nun at the convent my grandmother lived in for a while, and they were similar ages, so they were friends. That’s a complicated relationship for a throwaway comment and it creates space for a lot of follow up questions, so I streamlined it to roommate.
As long as the fudged details don’t materially change the relationship between the anecdote and the point, I don’t think it’s a big deal.
Like whether it was grade 3 or 4 doesn’t really matter, but if it was the teacher telling the story or a classmate recounting the tales of his summer up with his uncle in Canada and they couldn’t retrieve the body because they ended up in a motorcycle fight with a band of ninjas, I’d say that’s a bigger deal.
Because why would he leave out the ninja fight bit, that part is metal!
Not only is that a horrible thing to happen to a child on a class trip, it’s a horrible thing to tell a room full of nine year olds. My grandmother told me a graphic story about a roommate who lost an eye that has haunted me since.
Also, your edit made me wonder if I’m fundamentally dishonest, because it literally wouldn’t even occur to me to correct myself from the third to fourth grade while retelling an anecdote, even in person to close friends, unless it were about something with a date attached. I just figure that approximations are a part of life and it’s not that important, but I’m now asking myself if that’s the sort of thing I should correct and if I’ve been unintentionally (ish?) lying to everyone.
Edit: as evidence, I realized that I fucking did it in this comment. It was a nun at the convent my grandmother lived in for a while, and they were similar ages, so they were friends. That’s a complicated relationship for a throwaway comment and it creates space for a lot of follow up questions, so I streamlined it to roommate.
As long as the fudged details don’t materially change the relationship between the anecdote and the point, I don’t think it’s a big deal.
Like whether it was grade 3 or 4 doesn’t really matter, but if it was the teacher telling the story or a classmate recounting the tales of his summer up with his uncle in Canada and they couldn’t retrieve the body because they ended up in a motorcycle fight with a band of ninjas, I’d say that’s a bigger deal.
Because why would he leave out the ninja fight bit, that part is metal!
Because I’m an asshole of epic proportions. That’s MY ninja story and I’m gonna make sure that you don’t get to hear it!