On Walks Around the Block

My ex husband, Kevin, was a liar...or an accomplished storyteller, or both. He'd read about things in newspapers and magazines and say they happened to him. He was very convincing; most people believed his stories. I did, at first, and so did my family; also his second wife and her family. A close friend of mine, Bill, who had served as a first mate in the merchant marine for many years, once said to me, referring to my ex husband, "I could travel around the world four times and he'd have more stories to tell about how he went around the block four times." Well, yes, but here is the ironic thing...interesting things did happen to Kevin when he walked around the block. Once he took our dog, Charlie, for a walk after dark. Charlie soon came running back to the house, tail between his legs, and smelling like a fish. He ran and hid under one of the beds and wouldn't come out. About fifteen or twenty minutes later Kevin appeared and told me how the house on the corner had exploded just when he and Charlie walked by. The next day there was an article in the newspaper complete with a quote from Kevin, "I heard a crash; it sounded like a tractor trailer had gone through the house," he had told the first police officer on the scene. The occupants had moved out of the house the day before, so luckily, no casualities.

Bill told me how he had, on one occasion, successfully found a dentist at 4AM in Vladisvostok,
to pull a tooth which had been causing unbearable agony.

I liked the Vladivostok story more; it seemed quite a feat. But now I wonder: did this really happen, or did Bill make it up to have something to compete with Kevin's stories about walking around the block?