A story arrives on my doorstep in the form of a statement from a local merchant, which contains a surcharge for an invoice I am certain has been paid. I measure my indignation the way only the righteous can measure wrongs.

So armed with store receipts, adding machine tapes, and compelling narrative about my many years of patronage, I approach the store manager to show him the light of truth and error of his ways.

He promptly -- and politely -- shows me the error of my ways. I had not in fact paid the invoice. "Oh, " I sheepishly reply to this new-found fact.

The problem with facts is that they rarely add much drama to the stories streaming through our heads. This river of drama and deception running through our minds might be as deep and murky as any of the watery sort coursing through the valleys out here in Western Wisconsin.

The river is spring fed from the depths of our creativity; but also polluted with our interpretations, and stirred with our emotion. It 's a wonder we can all keep a grip on the real world against the force of its current.

We recently caught a story from the river -- supplied by the internet and other trusted sources -- a small fish that grew with each telling. The story circulating of Barack Obama 's purported Muslim faith is a good fish tale. Simply not true. Of course the story grows more sinister with our association of Islam and terrorism, rather like associating all Christians with the Inquisition.

Associating baseball with steroids might be closer to the mark, which makes you wonder about the backwater muck flowing through the minds of Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee, his longtime trainer.

One of them is lying, or so enamored with their story that a half-truth somehow materializes from the telling. Perceived truth lives in our heads like legend; the bigger the illusion the more room it takes to hold it, carving out a space that leaves room for little else.

Little else best describes the space left for reasoned opinion or open-minded discourse in President Bush 's head. Never have we seen a fisher of ideas so content with a meager catch. But I have been known to sit in a boat with my line in the river for hours of enjoyment with nothing to show for it but a bare hook.

Characters in the news pale in comparison to the drama played out in our own heads. We 're not talking adaptations stolen from the best seller list, but original screenplays taken from our own fictional encounters.

Business associates lurk around dark corners with sinister intentions toward us. Business competitors rise up from the battlefield with weapons drawn against us. Friends fall from grace because they don 't understand us. Plots thicken and suspense builds, as the narrator in our heads builds the case for small violence.

Our adversaries might choose their lines, but we choose the plot.

For our story, we 'll get Jack Nicholson -- the younger version -- to play the heroic self, and Anthony Hopkins to play the villain. Nicholson fights to uncover some noble truth, while Hopkins -- strapped into his Dr. Hannibal Lecter harness -- coyly hides the truth in layers of deception.

The battle is epic, and victory is at hand. But wait. New facts suddenly undermine the plot. A lack of information was mistaken for certainty; our convictions bump over to a new slot.

Whether we are indignant customers, steroid-enhanced pitchers, lame-duck presidents, or simply deluded selves; we create the spin on the world in our minds, then have the audacity to live in our creation. Real is what we make it, mixed from the mind 's narrative.

In this internal dialogue we could talk ourselves into finding weapons of mass destruction in our sock drawer. We don 't need to be deceived when we 're so good at deceiving ourselves.

Frydenlund lives in Prairie du Chien; efrydenlund@centurytel.net.