Buried treasure

I am one of those terribly annoying people who seems to have a corresponding anecdote for every story someone else tells. It’s another of my bad habits I’m aware of and try to curb. Many times I have such a tale on the tip of my tongue and bite it off. Not my tongue, the story.

I’ve lost count of how many times I written a long, rambling narrative, only to delete it because I know it’s NOT all about me. Yet, I love getting those kind of responses because it tells me I’ve hit a nerve.

It’s to the point that I often wonder if people think I’m just making stuff up. Some of my stories are really far-fetched, or such a long stretch to remotely be related to anything that it makes no sense for me to even bring up the event.

In my youth, I was that kid who always picked ‘truth’ when playing Truth or Dare, not because the dare scared me, but because I loved telling stories, even on myself.

I’m not one of those ghastly ‘one-upper’ people. I’m not trying to out-do anyone, only attempting to show empathy, or commiserating, hoping I can be part of something bigger.

Ask me to tell you a story, with no prompt, and my mind draws a blank. Tell me a story and it’s like a light goes on in the attic and all this long forgotten clutter comes crashing down. You can either slam the ladder door to keep anything from escaping, or stand at the bottom, arms open wide, hoping for a buried treasure.

He must make his stories shorter or change his comrades once a quarter.” ~ Jonathan Swift

This week’s word is:

Story

What to do:

Using “story” for inspiration, write 100 Words – 100 exactly – no more, no less. You can either use the word – or any form of the word – as one of your 100, or it can be implied. Include a link in your post back here, and add your story to the Mister Linky list. If you don’t have a blog, you can leave your submission in the comment section, or as a Facebook status post. Remember to keep spreading the love with supportive comments for your fellow Wordsters.