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My mother in law is a master confabulator. She makes up stories out of whole cloth and absolutely believes them. They range from the mundane to the fantastic to
by oceanghost 9y ago
My mother in law is a master confabulator. She makes up stories out of whole cloth and absolutely believes them. They range from the mundane to the fantastic to the impossible. Some examples:
One year she was disappointed that we didn't come to spend Christmas Eve with her. She never called to make plans because she imagined we'd just come over because "that's what we always do." In reality--we have never spent xmas eve together-- ever.
She insists there was a ghost in her house which played pranks on her and-- in full view of two other people levitated a potted plant and threw it at her.
and her masterpiece-- blaming me for her husband's death (of cancer) because I asked him to come to his daughter's graduation ceremony. I don't even know what to do with this one.
The maddening thing is, these people absolutely believe these things. They will argue until they are blue and tell you that you're crazy. It's hard to even blame them in the end.
- mehrdadn 9y agoRegarding the ghost thing, I assume it wasn't the case here, but it could be a life-or-death situation... see this video (I don't want to spoil it so I won't say more): https://www.ted.com/talks/carrie_poppy_a_scientific_approach_to_the_paranormal https://www.ted.com/talks/carrie_poppy_a_scientific_approach...
- tedajax 9y agoThere's something endlessly entertaining about the juxtaposition of a life or death situation and still not telling him outright just to maintain the suspense.
- dEnigma 9y agoJust in case anyone is interested (spoilers!): the talk is about a woman who thought her house was haunted, but it turned out she was suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, due to a leak. Carbon monoxide can cause auditory hallucinations and feelings of dread and pressure on your chest. Edit: added spoiler warning
- mehrdadn 9y agoYou just spoiled the whole thing...
- dEnigma 9y agoYes, because I think it is more useful to just write about the details of the potential "life-or-death situation" instead of linking to a long video about it. Your original comment was very clickbait-like, "What you don't know about hauntings could kill you!" If the whole thing can be spoiled with a short summary of the first couple of minutes, it's probably not worth watching anyway. Edit: I have now added a spoiler warning to my original comment (I hadn't thought about this possibility, sorry)
- hyperdimension 9y agoFor n=1, at least, I appreciated the summary (even though I understand what you meant about spoiling it). I habitually avoid videos on the internet, and with the summary, I was able to at least get the gist of the video, whereas otherwise, I would have never watched it.
- mehrdadn 9y ago> I habitually avoid videos on the internet Even TED talks? :(
- kstenerud 9y agoYes, even TED talks. They're not magically better. If I can't read a summary to judge the quality of information, it's likely I can just skip the whole thing and save myself from having my time wasted.
- felcori 9y agoi like transcripts some discussion boards that post videos also post transcripts summaries are cool too though depending. works best with videos that are just talking..