Facts vs. Non-Facts

The in-laws took Miss J to S's brother's house for a day. It's her first night away from home. We're crossing our fingers that she does okay. S's parents won't admit if she doesn't do okay. For her sake, though, we're hoping she doesn't freak out.

The visit is going okay. By the end of Monday, I was done. We hosted Saturday, we hosted Sunday, we hosted Monday. By Monday a tiny house all by myself was looking really appealing. I rested some on Tuesday, and tonight Miss J is gone and should be back tomorrow night.

Let's party like rock stars!!! Or sleep...

S's parents are different from us in many ways. Aside from the political differences that go without saying, there are two other differences.

1) They are consumers, and we aren't as much. We have a nice house, which was important to both of us. But other than that, we aren't big consumers. We don't buy much. We buy new things when our original thing breaks beyond repair or there's a good sale. We go out to eat about once a month. We own about 6 DVDs (it's beyond pathetic). S's parents are uber consumers. They buy So. Much. Stuff. And they can't afford to buy all the stuff they buy. We have the means to buy stuff, but we don't have much in the way of desire. They have desire, but they don't have the means. But it's okay, in their words, because "that's what credit cards are for."  Ummmm, okay.

2) They make shit up. In my world and my husband's world, there are these things called facts that are not debatable. You know, people are born, people die, historical events happened on specific dates. We're not trying to pass off our personal opinions as fact. The "why" of some facts can be subject to personal opinion and interpretation occasionally. I get that. I try to preface my opinions and observations accordingly.

But when you make up non-facts and try to pass them off as legitimate facts multiple times without any caveat like "I think" or "I heard" or something like that, it's plain weird. As in, S's dad said that a specific member of a musical group died of pancreatic cancer. I didn't know this, which I said. However, he has a track record of making shit up, so I look it up and find that the person is alive and well, just as I had thought.

I cannot comprehend why someone would pass off non-facts as facts. Does he actually believe these non-facts are facts? Or does he want to appear smarter than everyone else, and he thinks making stuff up is a way to do that even though it makes me distrust anything he says? It really puzzles me. Maybe it's because I live in a world where there are facts, there are opinions, and I think I do an okay job of categorizing them. It's hard for me to fathom how someone can be so fuzzy on the differences between the two categories.