My Life As A Stori

Wow, so I got a whole reader already, or so I’m told.  It’s not like I can see it for myself to verify.  Maybe my dad’s just being nice…but I guess I’m getting ahead of myself again.  I did promise I’d explain how I got myself into this situation, after all.

So you already know that I go by the name “Stori” because I like to read so much.  Well, one of the reasons I’ve always liked to read is because there’s not much else to do in the town I live in.  I revealed it’s in Nebraska, but I don’t want to say where because I already have enough problems with people treating me like their own personal movie theater - oops, getting ahead again.  Anyway, my town is very small, one of those where you have to drive an hour to get to the nearest decent shopping center.  Now, most kids that grow up here learn to cope by hanging at the burger joint or the skating rink, but those types of activities were never very satisfying for me.  I, unfortunately, had the bad luck of being born with what you might call a “higher than average” IQ.  That might have been a good thing had I been born in a big city where schools know how to handle advanced students, but here, there was only so much they could do for me to keep me from being too bored.  I got skipped ahead a few grades and still ended up finishing homework assignments during lectures and spending the rest of my time reading.  I kind of ended up like Belle from the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast where I read everything in the local library at least twice and had no real friends because everyone thought I was weird.  By the way, if you’re one of those people that thinks is so great to be different, try being the only one in a whole town full of people that gets the stink eye.  There’s a reason the term, “blissfully ignorant” exists - I probably would have been perfectly happy not knowing half the things I have stored in my head.  In fact, if I was a normal person, I never would have gotten myself into the mess I’m in now.

Then again, if I was a normal person, then poor Henry would still be lonely.  I guess I lied earlier - I wasn’t the only person in town who got the stink eye.  Nobody in town liked Henry.  He was that typical weirdo that every town has, the one that lives in the big creepy house and almost never comes out, and when he does, everyone notices but tries their best to pretend they didn’t.  His house was way out on the edge of the south end of town and there were always strange noises coming from it.  He was always building something and his lawn was always littered with odd pieces of machinery….Heh, listen to me, talking all in the past tense.  I’m sure his lawn is still buried somewhere under a bunch of junk.  In fact, knowing Henry, his house is probably more of a mess because I’m sure he’s been doing nothing but trying to find a way to get me back to normal since my accident.

Henry, if you’re reading this, don’t push yourself too hard.  This was my fault, not yours.

Anyway, when I was eight years old, I was of course one of those really smart and yet really dumb kids that cracked under peer pressure easily.  I did all kinds of stupid things like being the one to put super glue on the teacher’s chair (because I wouldn’t get in as much trouble since I was younger than the other kids - yeah right) and trying to jump the creek with my bike even though I knew in about half a second that the angle of the ramp wasn’t right (guess who went home soaked and with a busted up bike).  Hey, you can’t judge my stupidity too harshly - I was just trying to make friends, after all.  Anyway, one of those dares was to go knock on Henry’s door.  Of course, I did, and when Henry opened the door he was wearing these huge green goggles, bright blue rubber gloves that looked about three sizes too big for his hands, and he was holding up a blow torch.  Naturally, my first instinct as an eight year old kid was to scream and run, but my I-have-to-know-everything curious side kicked in and instead of running, I cocked my head to one side and asked what Henry was doing.  He stared at me for a second, looked up at the gate where the other kids where watching (who promptly scurried away when they saw him noticing them), and smiled down at me.  I remember his exact words: “I’m inventing something that’s sure to be fantastic.”

That was it for me.  I became instantly enamored with Henry and made special trips to his house after school every day after that to see what new invention he was working on.  Over the years, our relationship went from lonely old guy entertaining a lonely little kid, to a more formal teacher/student mentoring-type relationship, to a kind of father-daughter closeness.  We just understood each other and I became just as involved with helping Henry invent things (that never really hit it big) as I was with reading.  I never thought those two hobbies of mine would lead me to the biggest mistake I’d ever make.

And, I’ll leave it with that for the day.  Until tomorrow, just know that being super intelligent does not make you a smart person.  I know this first hand.  All you geniuses out there, don’t get too cocky or you could wind up like me…

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