Incredible

Def: Too improbable and/or extraordinary to believe.

Last semester I took a class called "Stratigraphy and sedimentation" in which we had to do a field project that involved a four day trip to the Cedar Creek anticline in Montana near a city called Glendive.

While there we studied ancient depositional environments and I collected several specimen samples. One was a clump of cretaceous aged clams found in the Pierre shale and the others where some cannon ball concretions from the fox hills formation.

I gifted one of the concretions to my biological mother, one to my mother in law, and one to my wife. The two concretions the mothers got where the size of golf balls and where nearly identical. I had personally chiseled the rocks from the sandstone myself with a rock hammer and carried them in my pack for the 1'000 + odd miles back home to give to them.

Both mothers collect rocks and where both very excited about the concretions.

Both wanted to know where their rocks came from. I told them the above story.

Now, here is where the story differs.

My biological mother listened to the the story and took it at face value. End of story. Why? Because with her I have some credibility even though I've lied to her face dozens of times when growing up.

My MIL, though, took the rock and showed it to the fam on my wife's side over christmas. They all decided, using their combined expert geological knowledge, that the concretions where in fact NOT ROCKS. But instead, were old ball bearings I had found laying on the ground and that I had tried to pass off as ancient and interesting geological finds. It took me an hour an several citations to correct the error.

I have never lied to my in-laws, but to them I am incredible.

My standing in my family is worthy of note.