Your parents’ road trip stories are better than any show you’ll stream this year. Ask for the director’s cut.

Older relatives were nineteen once and stupid in interesting ways, and almost nobody asks, so the good material sits unused. What you have heard are the family-safe edits, told at dinners and sanded smooth over decades. Underneath there is usually a much better and far less flattering version waiting.

Ask something specific rather than something general this week. What was the worst car you ever owned. Where did you go the first time you drove somewhere without telling anyone. Specific questions unlock the real telling, while general ones get you the same three anecdotes you can already recite.