A little story.

So I feel compelled to tell a story about my Dad. He took great pleasure out of messing with people’s heads. Not in a mean way. Just…messing with them. Also, he was born and raised on a small farm in upstate NY near the VT border. Anyway, one day he was assigned at work to show a man visiting Florida from NYC around. And he had an idea. He would play really, really dumb/crazy. He told the man he didn’t believe in snow. Thought it was a “Yankee conspiracy”. He dismissed every fact and example the man gave. In all other things he was his normal, rational self. But all day, he shot down the very concept of snow existing. Over and over and over. The more emphatic the man became the more my Dad shut him down. Til, finally, at the end of the long day my Dad confessed. Everyone had a good laugh.

Now, admittedly, my Dad was an expert storyteller. He could maintain a straight face and weave in intricate detail.  He was very, very good. But recent events had me thinking if this worked because of another reason altogether. I’ve seen so many men shoot down women’s catcalling stories as exaggerated or false because “they’ve never seen it.” Some mythology that if they haven’t seen it, it can’t be real. Or the opposite: “I saw someone with SNAP and an IPhone , so all SNAP recipients cheat.” I think this tendency of society to dismiss things that they don’t want to believe because they haven’t seen it worked in my Dad’s favor. He used the very real occurrence of irrational denial to play his joke. Admittedly, it was an exaggerated stance. But…by how much really?  Anyway…I’ve always loved this story. It is so much my Dad. But I wonder, more and more, is it so much ‘Murica as well?