A Tale of Two Tales by Nancy L. Eady

 Meet Max. 

Max is a pound puppy that came to live with us on December 27, 2022, when he was three months old. 

At seventeen months, he is now an adolescent puppy.  (Most dogs are considered an adult at two years.)  As you can see, he has grown considerably. 

If you look up “happy-go-lucky” in a pictorial dictionary, Max’s image should appear. He likes being a good dog until something more exciting, like a counter to surf or a trash bag to sort through, comes along. 

The other day, I was at work while my husband and daughter were at home. When I checked in with Mark to see how his day was going, he mentioned that Max had gotten into a mud puddle in the back yard, and Kayla had to wash him. Facts communicated; end of story. 

Compare his version to the following telephone colloquy between me and my daughter, Kayla, earlier that afternoon. 

Kayla:  Is there any medication for getting angry? 

Me [not prepared for the pop quiz]:  I don’t think so. Why? 

Kayla:  Because I’m pretty sure our neighbors will never hire me to clean their houses after hearing me scream at Max today. [Note:  She wants to start her own cleaning business.]

Me:  What happened? 

Kayla:  I let Max outside and he wouldn’t come when I called. 

Me:  Oh? 

Kayla:  When he didn’t come, I walked out into the yard, and he thought we were playing chase. He ran around the yard six times, stopping to drink from a mud puddle each time, and I kept scolding him for it. Then I got tired of waiting for him and turned my back to walk a different direction in the yard for a second, and when I turned back around, he looked like a chocolate lab. 

Me:  Oh? 

Kayla:  Yes. I turned back around and he had run and splashed through the mud puddle and got mud all over him. It smelled bad, so I think there was something in the puddle besides just mud. I was so mad, I started screaming at him. 

Me:  Oh? [I realize my end of this conversation is less than scintillating, but so far, I had not been called upon to offer advice, fix anything, comment on anything or do anything other than listen.]

Kayla:  And then he ran inside, ran all over the house, and got mud everywhere. 

Me:  Does Dad know? 

Kayla:  Yes. 

Me:  What did he say? 

Kayla:  He left. He had been waiting on me to go to Sam’s Club with him, but when he saw Max, he said he couldn’t wait any longer. 

Me [admiring Dad’s perspicacity]:  Did you wash him? 

Kayla:  It took two hours. The mud was caked on his underside so badly that I had to rinse him seven or eight times before I could even get to his hair to put the shampoo on. He kept shaking the dirty water off him too, and now my bathroom is covered in an inch of brown water. He made me so mad I had to leave him in the bathroom while I went to sit in the hall for twenty minutes to calm down.

Me: [ignoring the physical impossibilities of a two-hour dog bath and an inch of standing water confined solely to the bathroom, and pondering the amount of damage Max could do to a bathroom in twenty minutes, unsupervised]:  Is he clean? 

Kayla:  Yes, but I don’t know how he’ll get dry. He kept shaking the water off so I couldn’t dry him. Now I’ve locked him in his carrier so the blankets in there are wet too. I’m leaving him there until I finish mopping the whole house. 

Me [not sure what else to say]:  I’m sure he’ll dry off soon, but I have to get back to work. 

End of story. 

One story; two tales. A facet of writing is knowing when to use which version:  short and succinct, or dramatic, laden with details. How do you decide?