As my husband will attest, “tell me a story” is my favorite demand to place on just about anyone I encounter. My grandfather always acquiesced to this demand the same way:

“I’ll tell you the story of Mary Morey,
And now my story’s begun.
I’ll tell you another about her brother,
And now the stories are done.”

Most unsatisfying.

When my kid was little, he used to tell us that before he was born, he had lived on the planet Neptune but decided to visit Earth and got in my belly when his microscopic alien self went swimming in ice cream and I ate him. (I loved this, but I confess it actually creeped me out a little.) When he got older he wrote a story about going on a swashbuckling adventure with his trusty companion—his stuffed prairie dog. He’s still telling stories, but they are longer and more involved now. His ideas are brilliant.

My mother says her favorite stories of mine arose from the overactive imagination of an only child. I would come in from the back yard and she’d ask what I’d been doing, and I would tell her about stalking a lion on safari (I didn’t use the word “stalking,” but that was the gist) but that it had jumped the fence and run off, or I’d explain that my imaginary friend had taken a tumble in the puncturevines and landed in the agave cactus and we needed six Band-Aids, please. (I’m pretty sure this never worked. Band-Aids were like gold bars in our house.)

I don’t remember telling those stories. The one time I do remember just making up nonsense was with my friend Kirsten in kindergarten or first grade. Her mom had left us in the car while she did something—made a bank deposit or pumped gas or something—and a bee got in the car. Kirsten was terrified of being stung and started to amp up.

No problem, I told her. I speak bee.  And I bizzed and buzzed at the thing until it got fed up with me and parked itself on the windshield far away from the spazzes in the back seat. There, I told Kirsten. He has promised to stay up there and leave us alone. I have no idea if she believed me or just thought it was so hilarious she forgot to be worried, but the crisis was averted, and when her mom came back, the thing flew right out her open door.

So now it is your turn. Tell me a story! I’ll send you a book!