Coffee Shop Selections

Like many with Aspergers, I hate being bombarded with choices. It usually means a change is imminent and change, like most things that happen in life, is usually bad. So, when I am out and Vanessa has insisted we go into a coffee shop and get something to eat and drink, the huge list of every conceivable beverage and tea-time treat known to humankind leaves me somewhat flummoxed. This usually means that I stand at the front of the queue with glazed eyes as the assistant behind the counter strenuously tries to help or, at least, to get rid of me. The conversation, such that it is, usually follows the same pattern.

Assistant: Is there anything you’d like?

Me: I don’t know.

We do a tuna sandwich?

I can see that; it’s at the top of the list.

Oh. I can recommend the fish pie.

Who for?

At this point, the interaction generally ends as the assistant cranes round me, rolls her eyes, and serves the person behind.

Vanessa, noticing my predicament, sought a resolution. Instead of leaving me at the front of the queue, she started to accompany me and try her best to help. The conversation, such that it is, usually follows the same pattern.

Vanessa: Is there anything you’d like?

Me: I don’t know.

They do a tuna sandwich?

I can see that; it’s at the top of the list.

Oh. What about the fish pie?

Who for?

Except that Vanessa, unlike the assistant, is not so easily dissuaded. She continues.

Vanessa: What about something to drink? You usually have green tea.

Me: I do.

So you could have one now.

I could.

And to eat. You usually have a piece of flapjack.

I do.

So you could have one now.

I could.

So I could get you a green tea and a slice of flapjack?

You could.

See? That was easy. Except that Vanessa has now gone even further and completely cut out the middle man – that would be me. Realising my very presence at the front of the queue is entirely unnecessary – I have, after all, never eaten anything but green tea and flapjack in any coffee shop we have ever been in – I now select a table while Vanessa does the ordering completely on her own. Except that, since I will only go into a coffee shop in the first place if it is utterly void of anyone else, selecting a table leaves me with another myriad of possibilities. Generally, I am still coming to a decision as Vanessa returns with the tray of food.

Vanessa: Where would you like to sit?

Me: I don’t know.

There’s a table in the corner.

I noticed that.

We could sit there.

We could.

Let’s do that then.

Peace and Tranquillity in a Greek Villa

At our previous house, we lived next door to some interesting people. There was an old woman who was so profoundly deaf that even I didn’t mind speaking to her. A couple where the woman was so thin and whose hair was so frizzy I once accidentally used her as a mop. A busy prostitute (actually, that didn’t actually turn out to be true as we later learnt that her boyfriend always drove home to his mother after sex – and people think I’m odd). And, finally, a couple with two large savage dogs who barked from when they were kicked outside as the husband left for work in the morning (exactly half an hour before the time I used to wake up) until he returned later that night.

One important factor of Aspergers (well, mine anyway) is an extremely low tolerance for sound disturbance. So listening to two dogs letting rip for twelve hours was not a good thing. I tried all the obvious solutions, like sending Vanessa round to remonstrate, but nothing seemed to convince our neighbours that there was anything unreasonable in their dogs making so much noise that a nearby airport complained. I even looked into getting a shotgun but unfortunately my honesty on the permit application – Question: Why do you want a shotgun? Answer – To shoot next door’s dogs – put paid to that idea. So, I left the country. I spent almost the entire summer travelling and, in the autumn, went to a Greek Island with Vanessa for some peace.

We chose a villa next to an olive grove with absolutely no near neighbours. We even declined the services of a cleaner, deeming it too disturbing. What we didn’t realise is that olives are valuable in Greece and, as a result, are closely protected. Generally, the owner ties a large vicious dog on a very long length of chain and leaves it there. Predictably, the dog barks and howls almost continuously. Unlike the dogs next door, however - who went off shift when their master returned in the evening - the dog in the olive grove next to our villa barked all night. Every night.

To make it worse, we managed to adopt a stray cat during our stay. That might not sound bad, but it was. Vanessa has a weakness for anything furry and helpless and this particular bag of bones and fluff that waltzed up to our villa one morning fitted the bill perfectly. We called him Arthur, although I was very strict about not feeding him…for two days, and then I bought a big bag of catfood at the shop in the nearest village. But I was firm: he had to stay outside at night, which he did, curled up next to a big bowl of Kitikat deluxe. Unfortunately, that brought every other pitiful half-starved cat in Greece to our door. Ignoring the slavering dog chained up nearby, they did their best to intimidate Arthur away from his food by hissing and screaming at him, while he wailed back in terror at the top of his lungs. So I now had a demented dog, who was manically trying to break his chain and go on a cat killing stampede, every feline within a hundred mile radius howling threatening war cries, and Arthur, who knew exactly where our bedroom window was, wailing with such force I thought his lungs would burst. Could it get any worse?

As it was, it could and, very shortly, it did. Vanessa, unable to accept that nature clearly wanted a bloody carnage outside our villa and, more to the point, Arthur was likely to be at the centre of it, tore out of bed and rushed outside. Her banshee-like scream at the gang of cats intent on disembowelling Arthur was so loud that even the dog stopped barking. For a blissful, glorious moment, there was complete and absolute silence. And then, everyone seemed to gather themselves and continued as before. So I lay there, in what was supposed to be a peaceful retreat, listening to a barking dog, howling cats, and a screaming wife. I was glad to get home.

Complimentary Tea at the Roach Hotel

I am not good with hotels. The change of routine and having to walk past a desk and say hello to a receptionist in an eastern European language is not my thing. So I try to offset my discomfort by insisting that any hotel I stay in is the pinnacle of luxury. I want to be able to do backstroke in the bath and to wrap myself in so many white fleecy towels that I’ll be picking the fluff out of the cracks for weeks afterwards. Oh, and I don’t expect to have to sell a kidney to pay for it either, which means I generally book late.

This led Vanessa and I to roll up at one super-luxury hotel having paid less than the local YMCA charge for a box. The receptionist raised an eyebrow at the price on the booking confirmation and told us that our room was not yet ready. That irritated me. I accept that it was still thirty minutes before the earliest check-in time, but really. What the hell to they do to the room that requires so much time? From what I can see, they shove all the detritus under the bed and fold the toilet roll into a point. I could do that in fifteen seconds.

Would we like to go into the lounge for a complimentary cup of tea whilst we wait? Well, actually, I was going to throw a fit about the room not being ready but if a complimentary cup of tea is available, I might have that first. I acceded to the receptionist’s suggestion. After all, at full price, the cup of tea probably cost more than we’d paid for the room.

Just then, a smartly dressed woman waltzed past leading a delegation of Japanese executives. ‘That’s our deputy-acting-duty-manager,’ whispered the receptionist as we were pinned against the desk whilst they surged past; it was like a rerun of Pearl Harbour. ‘Could be a big booking for us if they like the place’. Indeed.

Vanessa and I squeezed past the Japanese, who were now taking photographs of the toilets, and entered the lounge. It was suitably grand. There was even a rather overstocked cake trolley, although I was unsure whether our complimentary cup of tea also ran to a slice of something chocolaty. As it was furthest away from anyone else in the room, Vanessa selected a table close to the door; a fine choice.

Vanessa was just about to sink into the three foot of padded upholstery that passed for a chair when I noticed several small torpedo-shaped blobs on its surface. They moved. Cockroaches. I put out a warning arm to stop Vanessa from descending onto the chair and, with my other hand, whipped the offending insects onto the floor. This all happened just as the Japanese delegation came through the adjacent door to view the lounge.

I am not sure what the Japanese is for ‘cockroach’ but I am sure it was repeated a few times among the party. The deputy-acting-duty-manager was entirely silent. As for me, now that the seating was completely insect free, I sank into the luxurious velour of a chair and rubbed my hands with anticipation. Now, what about my complimentary cup of tea.

Deus Ex Machina: Why the Washing Machine Hates Me

Overall, I get on with most household appliances, except the washing machine, which hates me. Not only does it hate me, but it hijacks my time every opportunity it gets. Since I reason that I can have a shower in less than ten minutes – including drying time – I am at a complete loss to understand why the standard washing machine cycle needs two and a half hours to clean a few clothes. And it doesn’t even dry them. So I have it set to the shortest programme possible and then press the button for ‘quick wash’. It now takes half an hour per load. The washing machine hates this. It tries to prolong each cycle by rotating the barrel by a mere quarter inch and then stopping dead for what feels like ages. This means that you are never quite sure when it’s finished. Last week, it was silent for ages. ‘It’s finished’, I thought, but then hesitated. I waited outside the door and counted to a hundred. Then two hundred. Nothing. Silence from the machine. I counted to another hundred and walked in. And it moved a quarter inch with a pathetic sloshing noise and stopped. I swear I heard it laughing.

The fridge is the same but less subtle. It has an alarm that sounds when you have the door open for more than three milliseconds. There is hardly enough time to grasp a pint of milk before it makes a noise like a rape alarm. I got so sick of it I asked the company what the hell the noise was for. It is, apparently, to prevent me leaving the door open and warming the interior. Oh, is it. Well, last winter, when the temperature outside had dropped to minus five, way colder than the fridge, I dragged it outside on an extension lead - I actually did this. I then opened the door and, three milliseconds later, the alarm sounded. So the company are lying. The only reason for the alarm is to bug the hell out of me every time I want to feed myself.

Things might have been different if they had left the design of the fridge to an Asperger person. Like my microwave. When the food has cooked and is ready for eating a buzzer sounds – no surprise there – but a message also flashes across the screen telling me to ‘Open Door to Remove Food’. Pure Asperger. With my last microwave, that didn’t occur to me and I took an axe to the metal side panel and smashed my way in. Now I know to open the door instead. Absolutely brilliant.

Anyway, to return to the washing machine. One evening, I was preparing to go out. Not an entirely relaxed time for me but it was also the night I do clothes washing and, like any Asperger person, changing the routine was impossible. So I shoved everything in the machine and set it to wash in double quick time. The washing machine knew this and dragged everything out interminably. I needed to leave in ten minutes and it still hadn’t got anywhere close to finishing. I was beginning to panic; I still had to drape the clothes over the stove for them to dry even after the bloody machine had washed them. It started its quarter-inch-rotation-followed-by-stopping routine. I yelled at it to hurry up. It then drained a bit of water. I screamed I was due out in approximately seven minutes and twenty three seconds. It did another quarter inch turn and stopped. I feared I might have apoplexy and die. What an end that would be; a melted heap next to a smirking washing machine. No. It wasn’t going to beat me. Finally, and with three minutes spare, it stopped. At last. I tugged at the door. Nothing. Then I remembered the utterly stupid, pointless, and dire piece of engineering that is the child lock. It prevents you from opening the machine for two minutes after it stops. This is in case a child opens the door and…well what? It’s stopped for crying out loud. So now I have to stand there waiting whilst that smug git of a machine denies me access to my clothes. I was beyond furious. I counted two minutes in my head and tried the door again. Nothing. I completely lost it at that point and decided the time had come to show this jumped-up two-bit machine who was boss. In American parlance, I kicked it’s ass. Well, not it’s ass but the front of the panel near the glass. Immediately, the door sprung open and I noticed a big dent in the front of the machine.

Later that evening, I admitted to Vanessa what I had done. She took it well. Then she asked me what I would have said if she had hoofed an enormous dent in the side of a household appliance. I replied that I’d be furious. But that’s missing the point entirely. The washing machine does not hate Vanessa like it hates me. She wouldn’t have to.

Railway Hell or How Agreeing to Everything is Not a Good Idea

When I am out and someone approaches me unexpectedly, as with a lot of people with Aspergers, I sometimes find it very difficult to fully understand what they are saying to me. I usually get the beginning few words and the end few words but anything in between is noise. With most people, this doesn’t matter in the slightest as they usually garble incoherent nonsense anyway. Where a response from me seems to be called for, I tend to have a few stock replies and “Yes, absolutely”, seems to work in almost all cases. But not always. Let me give you an example.

I was recently at an industrial museum looking at a huge model railway set-up and wondering how anyone could be so interested in tiny trains doing loops around mock-ups of trees and cows that they could devote their sad little lives to building it. Odd. So when I spotted railway-nerd approaching, I dived through the nearest doorway. Unfortunately, it was to a private area. This did not deter railway-nerd who, it turned out, worked at the museum and was responsible for building the entire railway edifice.

“Do you want to see the workshops,” he asked, indicating the cavernous interior of the room I had blundered in to.

“Er, well, er, yes, absolutely.”

So he led me through and into railway hell.

Now I know that everyone with autism is supposed to be railway mad but I’m not one of them. True, I did enjoy the odd Thomas the Tank Engine story when I was young but my favourite was the book where they retired Thomas from service and bricked him up in a tunnel. That’s where I would have wanted to be if I was a train with a face. I must have been the only child who cried when he was let out. That left teachers thinking I was odd and this was later confirmed when I drew a detailed picture of the plumbing system to my home, starting at the toilet and ending at the sewage works. I like to remember that the assignment was to draw a picture of your house, which wouldn’t have been so bad, but I have a terrible feeling it was to draw a picture of your family.

Anyway, railway-nerd was busy telling me in intricate detail how they plan each model set-up before crafting it out of all the rubbish that sane people would throw away. He asked me if I would like to know how they build the platforms, “yes, absolutely”, the bridges “yes, absolutely”, the landforms “yes, ABSOLUTELY”. This was hard.

Several hours later, we had covered every aspect of model railway building it is humanly possible to imagine and railway-nerd had moved on to advising me how to build my own set up. A two-foot base board is where you start, apparently. By now, I was silent, wondering which of us would die from old age first. Finally, railway-nerd announced that because the museum was about to close for the winter, he had better finish but would I like a few magazines to take home with me? “Yes, absolutely”. It was a good job I didn’t have far to stagger to the car with the amount of paper he thrust upon me. He then asked if I fancied a coffee in the café as it would stay open if he asked. “Yes, ab…er, no, thank you.” His whole body seemed to slump. I needed a softer approach, “Er, I just want to go and see that model tram you have in that pit over there.” I indicated to a rusting heap of metal in a large hole with a sign that read, optimistically, ‘Tram’.

Railway-nerd let me go and I quickly found the fire exit and made a break for it. Unfortunately, my route led straight past the café. I pulled my hat low, raised my collar high and went past as fast as I could manage without actually sprinting. I had almost reached the sanctity of the car park before a loud voice sailed after me “Start with a two-foot base board now,” I froze, paralysed by the horror it would start all over again. What the hell should I do? In the end, I did the only thing that occurred to me. I turned, waved, and shouted back, “Yes, absolutely.”

Playing the Superhero in a Turkish Station

I’m in Turkey, at a performance of whirling dervishes, the mystical adherents of the Sufi tradition. Whoever arranged the evening clearly had a keen eye for the exalted and dignified nature of the dance when selecting the venue. Unfortunately, the place they chose was obviously double booked as the evening went ahead in a cavernous room off Platform 1 of Istanbul Central Station. It’s a good job I turned left when I arrived and not right or I would have been on the Evening Express to Ankara and would have missed the show entirely.
Four rows of chairs encircled a central stage with several large signs asking patrons to refrain from using flash photography during the performance. It was in English but to make sure other nationalities also understood the message it was repeated verbally, also in English but in a loud and slow voice. As everyone knows all Jonny Foreigners understand that.
So the evening started with a Sufi orchestra playing twangy sounds and wailing a bit. After what seemed to be a good few hours of that, the dancers arrived, dressed in white cloaks with big hats. They were good. Very good. And before long people in the audience were rising to take photographs. Then it happened.
Just along from me, someone used flash. Immediately, a large Turkish woman moved over to give the sorry miscreant a good kicking and remind her – in an even louder voice but still in English – NO FLASH!
Everyone tutted. Since the reprobate was American, she obviously protested her innocence at great length. Doubtless she’d also be suing for her later therapy bill. Whatever, Princess.
Then it happened again. Same result. This person also protested their innocence, pointing out that their camera didn’t have a flash. As if.
It was then that I decided to take a photograph. Carefully setting the flash to off, I was surprised when, just as I clicked, a large flash of light appeared. The large Turkish woman moved in, everyone tutted, and I protested my innocence.
My back was now up. I had been falsely accused. For someone with Aspergers, this is not good. Someone was going to pay.
It didn’t take long to work out what was happening. A woman with a large camera and an even bigger flash was prowling the crowd, waiting for someone to stand up to take a photograph. Then she would sneak up behind them and take her own with her enormous flash before walking quickly away to avoid detection.
Next time she did it I was onto her. As the camera flash alerted the large Turkish woman to come running, I whipped out of my seat and into action. Several people were between me and the woman. No worry; they were bowled to one side like skittles. By now I was calling to large Turkish woman to catch up. Once more person to fling out of the way and I had my quarry. I didn’t exactly grab her around the throat but, let’s just say, she wasn’t going anywhere. I waited for my cavalry to arrive.
The large Turkish woman duly arrived and dispensed the kicking. Hell this was good. It felt like Dodge City. Except that the entire room was now looking at me. Those nearest edged backwards and even the twangy music seemed a little higher pitched. Heck, there was even a tut. I smiled wanly and returned to my seat. We superheroes never get any gratitude.

Girls and Castles: Strictly In That Order

I have a friend called Dave. That’s not his name but it’s what I call him. When I first met him he was in a group where everyone was called Dave. Easy to remember I thought, except that he was called something else. I completely missed that but, by the time I had realised, it was too late to change.
Anyway, Dave, by his own omission, is a little bit Asperger. That’s probably why I like him immensely. One day, we decided to visit a castle together whilst our wives were… Actually, I have no idea what our wives were doing but they weren’t with us.
As we walked up to the castle, Dave was troubled. I knew this, not because of some subtle cue I picked up on instinctively, but because he turned to me and said ‘Mike, I’m troubled’. What a top bloke.
I asked what the problem was. He pointed out that it was a hot day. It was. Good observation. I moved on, but Dave still lingered. Clearly there was something else.
"The girls will all be in short things and skimpy tops", he groaned. I agreed but, knowing my friend like I do, I couldn’t see why this was troubling him.
"It’s just that, if there are lots of them in there", he said, gesturing to the castle, "I’m not going to be able to concentrate".
He went on to explain how frustrating it is when a pretty girl moved into view and he has to choose between looking at her and looking at the Norman masonry that had absorbed him up until that point. "I can’t do two things at once", he reasoned.
Good point. So we came up with a plan. We would first tour the castle looking at the girls in the short things and skimpy tops. This would be our sole aim and the sole point of our attention; the castle would be ignored. We would give this task twenty minutes. (We also agreed on a certain degree of subtlety and tact so we didn’t thunder round the castle like two bull elephants in musth). After that, we would ignore the girls - including any new arrivals - and concentrate solely on the castle.
We did just that. We paid our money and, for twenty minutes, enjoyed the, er…what was on offer. We then ceased that activity entirely, opened our guidebook, and viewed the magnificence of the castle.
Some thirty minutes after that, whilst Dave was still examining the outer entrance to the monument - there was a lot of masonry on the approach - a stunning blonde sashayed towards the castle and into Dave’s view. If you took the sum total of the clothes she wore, my underpants were bigger. He legs were long and her chest…well; let’s just say it reached the castle some time before she did. I looked at Dave. He was beaming.
"Mike, Mike", he called in a state of near ecstasy and positively swooning at the sight before him. "I think I’ve found the portcullis mechanism". And, having checked, I do believe he was right.

How My Wife Starved at a Gala Dinner

I’ve said before in this blog that the wilderness of the arctic north is my idea of a perfect place, where there is more risk of being eaten by a polar bear than there is of bumping in to someone who wants to chat. Most days, I’d happily take the former. But on this particular trip north, people abounded as Vanessa had accompanied me to a Winter Market in Lapland, which the indigenous people of the region have been holding for hundreds of years. Although not the same people, obviously.
The town has two hotels. We chose the one with a lake view, although, since the lake was buried beneath eight foot of snow, I am not convinced that should have been the deciding factor. Asking about dinner arrangements, we were informed that on the days of the market, there would be several Gala Dinners, with traditional food and entertainment. Sounded bearable, especially since the only other place you could get food – bar shooting something – was a dodgy Chinese takeaway called ‘Her Chop!’, situated in the town’s only bar.
There was also another complication. Some years ago, reasoning that it might be better for our health, Vanessa and I had become vegetarian. I lasted some five years before succumbing to eating meat again. My failure to last the distance was for two reasons. One, I was sick and tired of people, on finding out that I didn’t eat meat, saying ‘Oh but you eat chicken don’t you?’ and then having to explain that since chicken was neither a fruit or a vegetable, it therefore came under the heading of ‘animal’ and, for a vegetarian, that caused a problem with the entire not-eating-meat concept. Two, I became so emaciated that even my vegan friends were slipping piles of lard into my salads. The problem was that, with my Asperger mind, cutting out meat meant precisely that. I just ate meals with the meat removed. So I had no protein for five years and, by the end of it, I was clinically dead. Vanessa, on the other hand, stuck with it and, to this day, eats nothing that had either a face or a name. Except fish. But who ever named a fish? Except for Nemo and Vanessa isn’t about to eat him.
Anyway, the day before the first Gala Dinner, Vanessa suggested informing the hotel she was vegetarian and asking whether they would make sure there was something she could eat. ‘Nonsense’, I replied, ‘this is a Gala Dinner with Gala food. There’ll be loads of things you can eat. You’ll be fine’.
On the night of the Dinner, the dining room of the hotel was packed. Really packed. Vanessa again suggested speaking to the waiter about her being a vegetarian, but by this time, I was too stressed by the crowd. I quickly scurried to our allotted table only to receive another barrage of prattle from Vanessa about the food. ‘Look’, I said, pretending to care deeply about my wife’s nutrition when all I could think about was the heaving mass of people around me, ‘if it comes to it, just eat the vegetables. There’s bound to be bloody vegetables’. There were and they were served first.
From a pointlessly enormous platter, we each got a miniscule roll of mashed potato in breadcrumbs. It was the size of my little finger. I looked at the bite sized portion of vegetable and then at Vanessa. She scowled. ‘Don’t worry’ I said, ‘there’ll be more’.
There was. After a pre-recorded drum roll – they really knew how to crank up the atmosphere in that place – two men appeared, each carrying the end of a pole. Pierced upon the pole was an entire roasted reindeer. This was quickly followed by others. The crowd clapped enthusiastically. Vanessa blanched. And that was the meal. Piles and piles of reindeer meat and one tiny piece of mashed potato in breadcrumbs, which turned out to be undercooked.
I troughed away like it was the last meal I was ever going to eat, whereas Vanessa, in between glaring at me, pushed the piece of raw potato around her plate with barely concealed disgust. Realising I had made an error of judgement in not insisting that they provide at least one item of food for Vanessa that she could eat, I made amends by placing the uneaten half of my raw potato onto her plate.
Despite this magnanimous and entirely self-denying gesture, we did not go to any more Gala Dinners. In fact, the next night saw us at roll up at Her Chop! and order their meal for two. Of course, we had sensibly checked beforehand that they actually provided food Vanessa could eat, so at least we knew she wasn’t going to starve; but, as I commented to her as we ate our boiled rice, I couldn’t understand why she hadn’t done that before the Gala Dinner. It would have saved us both a lot of angst.