Autism Watch: 2007

I was off work today — freebie day from upper management, yayyy! — and decided it was a good day for BB and I to have a lunch date. We’d considered one of a few local venues but with it being rainy, any tourists in town will be inside, crowding those venues. Not a good idea, so we opted for food. I wanted to expand BB’s food interests so I chose a local Asian restaurant, one that serves food from four different countries. Score!

BB chose two different kinds of sushi rolls (both spicy) and was looking forward to trying them with chopsticks. Just as we were served our soup/salad, a trio came in to sit in the booth behind us. Like many people locally, they were very loud. We have yet to figure out why so many people here are loud. It’s almost painful at times, and you find yourself stepping away, appearing rude, while they have no clue they’re talking much louder than they need to be. This trio was giggling at a glass-breaking pitch, and I watched BB begin to shrivel on his bench. Hands tightened up into little balls. Neck shrunk onto his shoulders, veins standing out.

I tried to distract. I joked about the silly names on the menu (as BB told me it was impolite to laugh at others’ food names) and grabbed any item on the table to try to redirect his attention.

No dice.

He wanted me to ask the management for help, so I tried to explain to him that it’s just not done that way, and that people don’t necessarily realize they’re loud. We had quite a conversation about social skills in public places, how management could handle it, how we’d handle it if we were management, and so forth.That worked for a few minutes. Finally, he’d had enough. When it got to the point where he was going to blow if we didn’t leave, we moved to a different booth. We picked up all our stuff and went to the next one over, the furthest available booth.

For about 30 seconds, blessed silence. Ahhhh. Problem was, it wasn’t that we’d moved far enough to not hear them or that they’d seen us and lowered their voices. Instead, they gestured and whispered about how we moved. Then bam-o, they began to talk normally again. Not a blip in their decibel level. The waitress came over and asked us what happened, and we explained. She was nice, acknowledged the sound, but that was it.

Thankfully, food came soon after, so I began to show him how to use chopsticks, what each of the items on his plate was and what to do with it. Yum!

In the end, it was disrupted somewhat but still a good lunch date. BB learned some new things and tried some new things. Success!