My daughter was over for lunch yesterday. After our meal we sat out on the patio enjoying the air’s in-between storms sweetness. While we discussing the differences between curly and straight leafed parsley she brought up traits children inherit that they don’t notice until they’ve put a few years on their adulthood and that reminded me that UPS avoids left turns in their delivery routes.

Well it made perfect sense to us! That’s because of the trait she got from me. Babbling (her word). Or rambling (my word). Or perhaps story telling (the polite words I should have led off with). (Maybe)

Apparently it came up last week when she was out with a couple of her girlfriends and their conversation move to the things they do they don’t realize they do that nobody but their families understand. Mostly only their families understand. Most of their families only understand. Some of their families understand. Their families might recognize but even most of them don’t necessarily understand.

It you think about it, there is probably at least one thing you do that nobody else in the world (or at least is not common behavior in your part of the world) that you can trace to you parents or an older sibling or that great aunt who came over every Sunday for chicken and spaghetti and then stayed to watch Gomer Pyle then the Ed Sullivan Show. It might be the way you tilt your head at a weird angle when contemplating answers to a particularly difficult question.  It might be how you fold a napkin under the plate at dinner’s end. Or it could be in how you ramble.

Actually, it’s not rambling as much as always providing the back story. And its back story if necessary. After all, every story has a story and a good story teller knows the story’s story as clearly as the story. It’s what makes for storied stories. In my daughter’s case, as a copywriter and content editor, being able to tell a story is essential although she often has to temper her desire to be as thorough as she’d like. But when it comes to her personal writing, no story takes a back seat to its own story. Or back story. Even.

For me, I was often reminded to get to the point more quickly at meetings or in email exchanges but just as often I was glad I kept the thoroughness in my correspondence knowing that while others were getting calls and memos asking for more detail, my projects were being presented for approval and reports stamped “OK.” Still, I have a hard time with text messages and even Twitter’s new expanded character limit is far less than appropriate for any meaningful communication.

So, you know UPS designs its routes with as few left turns as possible. Apparently it means a tremendous savings in fuel costs. That came up the last time my daughter was over and we has just finished a killer frittata for brunch.

It made perfect sense to us.