once upon a time...

... I was this nice little kid, with crooked teeth, pigtails and grubby knees. I must admit, though I was interested in everything happening around me, I never quite got the hang of how people interact with one another. I always felt weird around other kids, but got on fine with cats and dogs and the creepy-crawlies.

when I got older, my daddy cleared a room in the basement and set up shelves and a workbench, a high-power current line for a potter's wheel and all his tools and then kind of forgot all about it. I didn't, though. I went down there every day, playing with his toys. I got into taking the toaster or the vcr apart and checking out how it looked like inside, making slight adjustments that drove my mother crazy (she didn't think flying burnt toast was a good idea).

I kept on getting all kinds of experimenting kits for birthdays or good grades and I kept on trying to find a way to talk to the aliens with an old CB-radio. those bastards never answered, though.