I Can't Read People

Just a quick story today.

When I was younger, my Dad and I were always on the hunt for cheap video games. We'd scour garage sales, the San Jose Flea Market, and any other place we could find with used video games on the cheap. One of the places we found was a Game Crazy in Arizona where we vacationed one year. Game Crazy was in its first stages, so there weren't a lot of them around. Anyways, my Dad and I were in the store browsing the games there when a lady walked in. The lady had a rather disheveled appearance; her dark hair was frizzed about everywhere, she had a cane, her clothing looked like it was just thrown on, and she had a gigantic dog with her. She also had big black sunglasses. The lady, grabbing everyone's attention from the counter, yelled to everyone inside, "Is this the Applebee's?"

It was rather strange; this place was clearly not the Applebee's, purveyor of fine pies and family dining, this was a video game store. She was informed as such by the store clerk. "Where is the Applebee's?" the lady shouted back. I didn't really understand why she couldn't find it herself. The clerk told her to walk out the store, take a left, and walk about 200 yards down the street and she'd run smack dab into it. She left the store. What a strange occurence.

When I got into the car with both my parents when my Mom picked me up, I decided to relay the story. Even at a young age I knew this would be a fun story to tell, so I told my Mom what had happened. I told her a clueless, strange lady came in with a big dog, huge sunglasses, and an inability to distinguish Game Crazy from Applebee's. My Dad, ever the realist, threw up his hands in amazement at my inability to understand. My Dad always had a way of explaining things so that I would understand them. Once again, he had found a way to take this complex, strange affair, and break it down to the most simple solution so I, too, could see.

"Andy, she was blind."

Oooooooooooooooooh.

Talking is Disruptive

When I was a kid, I talked a lot. My mom tells stories about what a great baby I was; I was fat and slept all the time. I never cried, even when I got my first hair cut. That said, it didn't last long. The moment I was able to talk, I didn't stop. Even now its fairly obvious that storytelling is one of my great passions, and I'm more able to practice it in appropriate places (like a blog.) It wasn't so at the age of four. I pretty much only had my family to talk to, and talk I did. The funny thing was that I didn't really have anything to talk about. When you're four years old and you want to tell stories, its a rather rough spot to be in, since you don't actually have stories. I hadn't lived at all to tell stories from experience, so I did a few things.

1) I recounted comics I had read. I pored over my brother's tomes of Calvin and Hobbes comics, since they seemed relatively well received by the whole family, and I could just tell Watterson's stories without the advantage of art. Too many of my conversations would begin with "Did you read the Calvin and Hobbes where..." and obviously my sister hadn't read it, and would get frustrated as it just wasn't funny to hear from a four year old's mouth. I still have this problem I think, but in this day of age I can just google the thing I want to hear and annoy people with visual aid. This unique experience lead me to a few scant successes here and there, when my tale would get a raucous reception, which spurred me to the next step.

2) I developed schticks. Once I had stumbled upon things that made people laugh, I stuck with them. The one that sticks in my mind was my Sean Connery impression. I actually had little idea who Connery was when I was 8, but the Celebrity Jeopardy sketch with Darrell Hammond impersonating him was silly enough, and I really just impersonated the impersonation. Regardless, I was decent enough at it that my whole family enjoyed it. I reveled in it for a while, until I noticed that it suddenly became the only thing that was funny. Whenever I had worn out my welcome telling bad stories, someone would suggest I do Connery, as a way to redeem myself and end on a good note. Unfortunately it got to the point that it was all I did, and I got bitter whenever people asked me for it, since I felt like it was all anyone ever wanted to hear. This lead on.

3) I stopped telling stories. I still talked, but it was mostly to myself. This was the period when I became a lot more introspective and secluded (read: depressed.) I started to wonder why I didn't have any stories to tell, and it was because I wasn't making any. I was stuck inside the high-school Simple Plan/Blink 182/Etc. mindset of "Why doesn't anyone invite me to anything?" The reality was that I was shutting myself down in order to pity myself. It was a terrible cycle of self inflicted, Godless deprecation, but it was the product of a mindset that wanted experience without experiencing it. God pulled me out of it, and it still evolved.

4) I lived. Its a going concern, but I began doing things which begat the telling of stories. I tried new things; I began playing Dungeons and Dragons; I auditioned for a play; I got a job. I was better at some things than others, but fortunately they had all produced stories. They also allowed me to meet people who had their own stories, and I could learn what they did that let them have such great stories. I'll always remember the ride home in Coach T's car with Joe and Jamil where we did nothing but tell stories of our families and laugh for two hours. Since God has taken over my life, I've begun relying more on the unpredictable, and I've started to become a more tale-worthy man. Obviously I'm not ready for the Autobiography (it'll be short, "First I sucked, then God fixed it") but I feel like I'm getting closer.

Go try something new today. Even if you totally stink, at least you'll get a good story out of it.