tonight's question — one story from before you were born

Tonight the children run the table. Their question, aimed at the oldest people available — at dinner if the elders live with you, on a Sunday video call if they do not: tell one story from before I was born.

Two rules for the grown-ups, and they are strict. No morals — the story is not allowed to end with "and that is why you must study hard." And no editing for impressiveness; the best family stories are the ones where somebody got lost, something burned, a plan failed and everyone survived it laughing.

If an elder waves it away with "arre, what stories, nothing happened in our time" — wait. That sentence is almost always a door pretending to be a wall. Ask about the smallest thing: what did a school day look like? What did things cost? Who was the strict one in the house?

One story is the whole assignment. Where one is told, a second usually follows on its own.