Well, there was a squirrel

My wife and I have this in-joke based on a famous family incident: our nephew spun an imaginative yarn about seeing a squirrel doing something absurd and incredible (it doesn’t matter what, just fanciful silliness). When challenged on the veracity of his story, he said, only slightly abashed: “Well, there was a squirrel.” So now the expression “well, there was a ____” has become a standard way for us to ironically refer to a relatively reliable element of any story, as an oblique way of saying that the rest of it is utter bollocks.

I like this in-joke a lot. It pains me deeply that I can’t use it effectively anywhere except conversations with my wife.