Story 2: Cat

“That’s way too long, you’ve exaggerated a step too far, I don’t believe that for a second”, stated Marie, semi-tersely. 

“Honestly, you can believe what you like, I’m just stating the facts as I remember them”, returned Val. He did care, a little. As with every conversation it’s not entirely about the trivial subject at the centre, but more an assessment of the esteem in which each conversational partner holds the validity of one another’s claims, and a whole network of other things; the general worth of all involved.

In this case, we’ve entered a conversation immediately after Val claimed his childhood neighbour’s cat had a four foot long tail.

“That makes me feel sick,” added Chris, “did the whole thing move like a tail?”

“The whole thing was a tail, what do you… what?” Val squinted incredulously.

“Yeah, no I get that, but cat’s tails are very fluid,” attempted Chris, not clarifying his point. “Right, ok. Did you get the sense that the bones in the tail were proportional to a four foot tail, like, were they extra long, or did it seem like they were a conventional length, but there were more of them, so the wagging was more detailed as opposed to a big long wag across a big long tail?” 

“I do know what you mean, it was the latter,” confirmed Val. “If it wagged its tail, there would be, like, 4 arches in the tail, rippling up.”

“That’s quite a mental image, like a ribbon of smoke,” said Chris.

“How does this link in with what we were just talking about?” interjected Marie.

“What were we talking about before?” asked Val.

“My grandad’s operation.”

“Oh shit, sorry yeah, did it go ok?”

“No.”