And Did You Look Upon the Wall?: True Tales of Fact & Fiction

It was not a dark and stormy night. Nor was it a dark and stormy day. But it was an unusually chilly afternoon in Sayulita, Mexico. Leslie and her father were hanging out at the beach eating shrimp and listening to the soothing irregular beat of the waves, politely declining the poor vendors walking by selling their wares. They really had not declined them (they were not unsympathetic to the friendly vendors' need to make a living), only the second through fiftieth time they passed by. You see, on each of the vendors' first pass that day, they had managed to purchase a salad bowl large enough to live in, a custom-made hammock for rocking dolphins to sleep, earrings made out of the petrified spit of the vendors' Aztec ancestors, and sunglasses that allow one to see behind oneself. The Mother (who, coincidently, was also Leslie's father's wife) was also there, but she preferred conversing with strangers and was accosting several families, regaling them with varied and sundry tales of The Edwards Family. She had a good reason for doing this, as The Edwards Family is quite an interesting family. So interesting, in fact, that the members of it can barely contain themselves from regaling each other with their own stories. And so it was not at all unusual when Leslie turned to her dad with a simple question -- a question that lead to an entire day of stories.