Have you ever wondered why people are the way they are?
Why some people can sit quietly for hours, perfectly content with their own thoughts, while others seem physically incapable of leaving a question unanswered? Why some people are naturally cautious and measured, while others see a perfectly reasonable situation and immediately think, “I wonder what would happen if…”?
Maybe it’s personality. Maybe it’s genetics. Maybe it’s environment.
Or maybe, just maybe, God has a sense of humor.
I say this because I have spent a fair amount of time wondering why I am the way I am.
I am naturally amped up. Apparently, when God was putting me together, He found it humorous to make me highly curious, creative, and so full of energy.
You could say I’m the complete package.
Unfortunately, there was apparently no instruction manual included.
My mind is constantly asking questions. My imagination is constantly coming up with ideas. My energy is constantly suggesting that sitting down is a temporary condition rather than a lifestyle.
Put all three together, and you get a person who can be deeply interested in six different things before breakfast—and somehow still be wondering what everyone else is doing.
I imagine God looking down at the assembly line and saying:
“Let’s make this one curious.”
Then:
“Give him some creativity.”
Then:
“A little energy would be nice.”
At that point, someone probably suggested moderation.
God apparently found that hilarious.
So here I am: naturally amped up, highly curious, creative, and full of energy. Adaptable, athletic, quick learner. The complete package—just one that occasionally arrives with a few extra parts, some assembly required, and absolutely no off switch.
Eventually, all that curiosity had to go somewhere. I evolved into a tinkerer. And chaos soon followed. Not intentional chaos, mind you. At least, not initially.
I was simply curious about how things worked. If something had a screw, I wanted to know what the screw was holding together. If something had a panel, I wanted to know what was behind it. If something worked perfectly well, I naturally began wondering if it could work better.
That last part was probably where things started going downhill. There is a dangerous little sentence that lives inside the mind of a tinkerer: “I wonder what happens if I…”
It sounds innocent enough. It rarely is.
Sometimes the answer is, “Nothing. Everything is fine.” Sometimes the answer is, “Well, that’s interesting.”
And sometimes the answer is accompanied by a pop, a spark, a smell that definitely wasn’t there before, and the immediate realization that perhaps the manufacturer had a very good reason for putting that warning label there.
But that only made me more curious. Because now I had a new question: “Why did it do that?”
And so the cycle continued. Curiosity led to tinkering. Tinkering led to experimentation. Experimentation occasionally led to chaos. And chaos, as it turns out, is an excellent teacher—although it tends to charge tuition in broken parts, lost screws, singed fingertips, and the occasional need to quietly put something back exactly where you found it and pretend you were never there.
I wasn’t trying to cause trouble. I was trying to understand things. Unfortunately, understanding things sometimes requires taking them apart. And putting them back together is where things get interesting. Especially when there are leftover parts. Those are never good.
You can always tell yourself they’re probably unnecessary. You can even convince yourself the thing works perfectly without them.
But somewhere in the back of your mind, there’s a tiny voice whispering: “We probably should have figured out where that went.”
And that’s how a curious kid eventually becomes a tinkerer.
And how a tinkerer, with enough time, curiosity, creativity, and absolutely no respect for the phrase “leave well enough alone,” becomes a walking invitation for chaos.
I’m sure at some point, somewhere along the way, an angel came rushing into Heaven.
“Sir!”
God looked up.
“Yes?”
“He was given caffeine.”
God paused.
“Caffeine?”
“Yes, sir.”
God waved dismissively.
“Don’t worry. It can’t possibly cause any issues. He’s going to be fi—”
A sudden disturbance somewhere on Earth caught His attention. God slowly turned His head.
“…Oh.”
Another disturbance.
“…Damn.”
A third.
“I didn’t anticipate that happening.”
The angel quietly looked down toward Earth.
“Should we take the caffeine away?”
God sighed.
“No. At this point, I’m curious too.”
There was a long silence.
Then another angel cautiously approached.
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think we should have included an off switch?”
God looked back down at Earth. He watched for a moment. Then another moment.
“No.”
The angel looked relieved.
God continued:
“I think we should have included a return policy.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, may be how the return policy came to be.
Because apparently, somewhere between highly curious, creative, full of energy, and give him caffeine, somebody in Heaven realized that this particular model might require a little more supervision than originally anticipated.
Sounds like God intended to make me the high-performance model and forgot to install the governor.
A blessing and a handful, apparently.
You could say I’m the complete package.
God just forgot to include an off switch.
There’s more waiting at https://xinkblotz.com.
Telling stories, sharing thoughts, and drinking coffee. A blend of fiction, reflection, and whatever’s brewing—one post at a time.
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© 2026 Mariano Velez ~ InkBlotz Press
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