Ambiguities From The Boy

Yesterday evening I was sitting outside on the porch swing talking to the Boy on the phone and watching the sunset through the trees in our neighborhood.  It caught my attention because it was striking and looked like the trees were on fire.  I mentioned this amazing sunset to the Boy and he said the sun had already set where he was, which is only about 240 miles south of where I am.  I always thought that since he's directly south of me that it would get dark about the same time.

Now I didn't realize there was such a difference in sunset times between Birmingham and the coast.  I questioned him.

"Was he SURE it had set already?"

He said it was probably because he's at sea level and I'm at a higher elevation.  I had trouble believing him and questioned him again about just how dark it was there.  He said again that it was almost dark, but not totally dark.  Doubtful, I asked him again if the the sun had gone down.

He said  "YES! It had!!"

Perplexed and curious about this sunset mystery (I just got back from spending a week at the coast and didn't think the sunset times were any different there than here), I decided to google sunrise/sunset times in Alabama today just to see the exact sunset time here and the exact sunset time where The Boy lives.  I would have expected from my conversation with him last night that his sunset would be a few minutes before mine.  Imagine my surprise when I see that my sunset time is actually 5 minutes earlier than his sunset time.

 Now, he told me the sun had already set where he was, but mine had not.  I have to ask, Was it cloudy there and he was just incorrect in his sunset assessment?  Was he just not paying much attention to the position of the sun and wanted me to shut up about sunsets in general?  Are the charts on the internet just all wrong??

 Or is he on a road trip somewhere east of here (where the sun would have already set) and just making me think he's at school studying hard.

I haven't had time to question him on this discrepancy, but it probably won't do any good if I do...