The Christmas Sparkle That Lasts All Year

As someone with Aspergers, I usually think most decisions through to a very lengthy and involved conclusion. Unfortunately, this train of thought, although extensive and detailed, does not always take in the bigger picture. Which is why, one Christmas several years ago, I stood before a discounted job-lot of seasonal wrapping paper and decided it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I reasoned that, with the two-dozen rolls they were selling, I could wrap all of Vanessa’s Christmas presents for the next ten years or so and save myself both time and money. Brilliant.

The paper itself was a tasteful shade of red. Well, tasteful if neon and glow-in-the-dark colours are your thing. I thought it was perfect. It was also covered in glitter, which amplified the red to give a dazzling, sparkly, and slightly drug-crazed-vision feel. Maybe I’d slip some migraine tablets in with Vanessa’s first present, just in case. It was only with hindsight that I realised I should have reflected on why the store-owner wanted to get rid of it at such a knock down price in the first place. He even threw in a few more rolls for free.

When it came to wrapping, I laid out a sheet of the paper, cut it to size, and lifted it up. Beneath was a rectangle of glitter, about half an inch thick. Clearly, the glue used to stick the damn stuff was more Teflon than Araldite. I persevered. Soon, the entire wrapping table, the floor, the lower portion of the walls, and even a few spots on the ceiling were covered in red glitter. I fetched a dustpan and brush to sweep some of the excess blizzard but this only served to send it bouncing into the air, where it stuck on every surface with a static charge. I looked down at my clothes. They looked like the sort of outfit Dorothy would chose to go with her shoes. I got the vacuum cleaner. It managed to clear a small area so that the colour of the carpet began to show through but was soon covered itself. Vanessa arrived home and asked whether maybe a glitter factory had exploded nearby.

On Christmas Day, when Vanessa came to open her presents, we both braved the wrapping paper with the same stoicism that the Bedouin brave a sandstorm. Cover eyes, mouth, and nose, and avoid breathing deeply. The industrial extractor we fitted above the present-opening surface helped but the house still resembled a psychedelic seventies-style discothèque once we had finished.

Since that day, we have renovated the house, completely gutting the interior. We took the floors out, hacked the plaster off the walls. We even took the bloody roof off. And I still find bits of red glitter remaining. I imagine if there was a nuclear holocaust the cockroaches – or whatever creature it is that can withstand a nuclear blast – will awake in a post-apocalyptic world to find it covered in red glitter. Everything else having been confined to oblivion.

After Christmas, we took the wrapping paper to a barn, where I came up with a cunning plan. Anyone who upsets us during the year – and let’s face it, I’ve got Aspergers, that’s pretty much everyone – gets a present from us wrapped in red glitter paper. We wrap it outside, in the lowest field next to the river, and immediately put it into the back of my truck for carriage to the Post Office. The glitter doesn’t come within a mile of the house and we rub ourselves down with alcohol wipes afterward. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, and with 15 rolls still out there, we’ve got plenty to go round.

The Day My Secretary Turned into a Zombie

One aspect of Aspergers that should be entirely positive is our complete and total honesty and our willingness, indeed almost need, to be helpful. What could go wrong with that attitude?

Lots, as it turns out. Like being asked whether someone looks fat in a dress they are wearing. I realised early on that “Yes” often received an adverse reaction. It was completely and totally honest but clearly lacked that other criteria: helpfulness. So I modified my answer to: “Yes, but I wouldn’t worry as you’ll look just as fat in anything else”. To my bewilderment, this didn’t go down well either. Maybe I needed to show I cared. Demonstrating empathy is something we find hard. It’s not that we don’t care, it’s just that we always look as if we don’t care. Next time I tell someone they look fat maybe I should have a pained expression, like it’s a bad thing.

I once had an opportunity to bring all three criteria into play when my one-time secretary – we’ll call her Mary for all the usual reasons, like, that’s her name – arrived for work looking ghastly. I say ‘secretary’ but, in reality, I was too junior to have a designated secretary but Mary did my typing and made me a drink now and again. I liked her enormously and, despite her being several decades older than me, we always got on. So I was genuinely concerned when she walked in early one morning looking like she was about to drop dead of Ebola. Mary usually belied – what I thought then – was her advanced age and looked fabulous, so her current state was of immediate concern.

My initial reaction was honest, helpful and, above all, delivered as if I cared. “My God!” I almost shouted, “You look awful. What in God’s name is wrong?” Mary smiled wanly and sat at her desk, directly opposite mine. She resembled a zombie.

“Are you ill?” I pressed, “A disease? Has it been coming on long?”

Mary sighed and replied, “I was late leaving the house this morning...” Before she could finish, I cut her off.

“Fair enough,” I allowed severely, “but to arrive looking as bad as you do. You shouldn’t have even got out of bed. You look truly hideous and you need to take whatever it is seriously. Go home. See a doctor. Maybe an undertaker too. Best be prepared.”

At this point, a colleague walked over. He looked at Mary, looked at me, and told me not to be so unkind.

“Unkind!” I spluttered, “Mary looks as if she might die any moment and you say I’m being unkind. My God man, just look at her.”

He did. And so did I. Mary had taken out her make-up bag and was applying some powder to her face. She finished her earlier sentence...

“I was late leaving the house this morning… and I didn’t have time to put my make-up on”.

Make up? You mean… No! I was utterly flummoxed. I then proceeded to watch Mary turn from an extra from the Night of the Living Dead to the gorgeous individual we all knew and loved. Incredible.

But I wasn’t going to let it rest there. “You look much better,” I allowed, “But for pity's sake, never do that again. I can’t take the shock.”

And, to her credit, she never did.

No Miami but a Whole Load of Vice

Sometimes, Aspergers can make something that is completely daft appear, well, completely sane. Like the time my friend Graham (yes, that’s his name) and I visited our local nightclub when we were teenagers. Graham was, as a lot of my friends were, a tiny bit autistic. I knew him from the school computer group. Enough said.

Knowing that our only attempt to breed successfully was to attend social gatherings, we occasionally visited the flesh centres that were the local nightclubs. By visiting a specific club - for which we were technically 8 years too young - we could commandeer one of its many darkened booths and, fending off the inevitable comments about our sexuality, slink back to the shadows when it all got too much.

Around the time we visited the nightclub, the television schedule was reeling to the phenomenon of Miami Vice. At least, mine was. Since I was fair-haired, had a face full of stubble, and tended towards pastel shades, I was Crocket. Graham, blessed with dark skin and a line of natty suits, was Tubbs. Yes, it was daft but read the first line again.

The evening we visited the nightclub, we were already in persona. Graham wore a soft grey chalk-stripe suit and I had more pastel on me than a piece of Degas art. Naturally, I wasn’t wearing any socks either. I drove the short hop from our sheltered countryside houses into the heaving metropolis that was our local town. I think we may have even stopped at a traffic light, it was that frenetic. All through the journey, we played my Miami Vice music cassette, recorded from a friend’s vinyl record. Oh yes. Not only were we vice cops, we were pirate vice cops. Could we be any cooler?

Actually, Graham decided that we could. There was the usual queue into the nightclub with a long line of people snaking along the pavement. We had to drive past them to park the car. Graham suggested that we lower the windows (I had fitted my car with electric boxes to replace the winding mechanism, which, to us, made it feel like we were on the space shuttle) and cruise slowly past the queue while playing the theme music to Miami Vice, extremely loud.

I pointed out that the theme music was at the beginning of the cassette and we were nearing its end but that was solved by pulling over some metres from the crowd and rewinding. I am sure a few people might have glanced over at the small red Vauxhall Nova blocking all the traffic while two flustered geeks furiously pressed the rewind button on the cassette unit again and again in the vain hope it might make it go faster. But they surely had no idea what was coming next.

With the first cords blaring out of the open windows (half-open on my side as the winding mechanism didn’t always work), we approached the crowd. Graham hung his arm out of the window as we had seen Tubbs do in an episode the previous weekend. He then came up with his second great idea of the evening.

“Mike,” he shouted above the blare of the music, “stick your sunglasses on”. I protested that I could barely see anyway with all the dazzling lights from the nightclub interfering with my night vision but Graham was insistent. It would make us look über-cool.

I stuck my shades on and, as predicted, all went immediately black. There was a tiny amount of light from the nightclub door and, in my increasing, and very literal, blind panic, I careered toward it. Graham, oblivious to our direction of travel, concentrated on simultaneously looking cool, while stopping his eardrums from bursting with the racket that was emanating from the stereo. I am not sure whether it was when we mounted the curb that I realised there was a problem or when people began screaming. Deciding that coolness will only take me so far in life, I removed my sunglasses. I had a line of people immediately to the left of my car, each of whom had been forced to flatten themselves against the wall of the nightclub when my car mounted the pavement. Graham continued to ham it up by shouting “Yo” to as many angry faces as he could.

I turned the wheel and my car left the pavement and re-joined the road. I decided to forgo the sunglasses whilst I entered the car park and found a space. I looked at Graham, who was beaming. “That was so cool”, he assured me. It took many years before doubts began to surface.

Meeting People…Twice

When I was a first year University undergraduate, I lived in a hall of residence. This was not nice but made partly bearable by having a large contingent of Chinese students about the place. Most couldn’t speak much English, which was fine by me, but those that could often shared something about their culture, which was great as it made interacting with other people educationally meaningful rather than completely pointless. Until that year, I honestly thought the Chinese word for “Egg Fried Rice” was “Number 42”. Apparently not but I can’t say I remember now what it was.

One weekend, Vanessa visited and, using the communal washroom one evening, shared the line of basins with a Chinese girl. She was a nice girl who had Room Number 26 or “Pork Chop Suey” in English. Anyway, making the sort of pleasantries that I am told are called for in such situations, they fell into a conversation. At the end of it, the Chinese girl said to Vanessa “I’m sorry but have we met before?” Vanessa demurred at which the Chinese girl explained “It’s just you all look alike to me”.

Vanessa found the comment ironic but, to me, it made perfect sense. People do all look the same. It’s not just facial features I can’t recognise with my Aspergers, but whole faces. For example, I’m a nightmare to watch a film with since, as well as spouting fascinating trivia about the film, its production, and events depicted on screen every two minutes, I cannot usually tell one actor from another unless they have a huge scar or only one leg. So I’ll be waxing lyrical about the enthralling habits of the white-tipped reef sharks that are just about to eat James Bond while checking with Vanessa that the villain on screen is the same Emilio Largo that Bond met earlier on the boat. If I am on my own, I often resort to reading the script just to know who’s who. I can just about cope with the Muppets but real people – forget it.

That has it’s downsides, such as the time when I started work in a large office during my mid-twenties. On my first day, I had resigned myself to shaking hands a lot and took comfort in the fact that nobody would expect to be hugged. I subscribe to the theory that while shaking hands is merely unhygienic, a hug is full-on assault. Anyway, I was duly marched along a line of tiny offices, each holding a man in a suit I was expected to greet cordially. I would stick out my hand, accept the transfer of goodness knows how many germs, tell the person with as much sincerity I could muster how glad I was to meet them and move on. It would have gone fine except that one complete Womble decided to move offices half way through. He started in the first office, where I duly shook his hand, then moved to the end office - my final destination. I did not notice.

I entered said office, leading what was now a considerable entourage as it seemed everyone in the entire organisation was playing ‘follow-the-new-guy’ in that gormless but friendly way people in large corporations or with frontal lobotomies are wont to do.  They immediately knew I had met the Charlie sitting behind the desk before. With my limited facial recognition – not to say the considerable stress of the entire situation – I did not. I reverted to form, thrust out my hand, and told him how nice it was to meet him. The entourage fell silent as he looked at my bacteria-laden hand with distain. “We met”, he said in a low voice, “two minutes ago”. It was embarrassing. I knew that. So God only knows the reason for what came out of my mouth next. “My word!” I said breezily, “You were certainly memorable”. He did not speak to me again.

Throwing a Strop is Better Than a Road Atlas

I once read that, when returning from migration, male birds find the exact spot of their birth whilst females return only to the approximate area. It made me realise just how similar we humans are to animals. When out driving with Vanessa for instance, if I navigate we find the exact spot, whereas if Vanessa navigates, the approximate area would be considered a startling result. This is why, for the past ten years, whenever Vanessa and I go anywhere – which isn’t often, I grant you – she always drives. I navigate.

This was not always so and, for the first decade of our relationship, the roles were reversed. I drove and Vanessa had a road atlas open on her knee whilst she gazed out of the window in the desperate hope that inspiration might strike. It was a good road atlas too; a very hefty hard back with street maps of every large conurbation and even pictures of the moon’s craters, although why they were there I never really worked out. Anyway, our arrival at a junction usually followed the same pattern.

“Which way?” I would ask.
“Er…”
“Left or right?”
“One of those”
“Which one?”
“Er…”

At this point I would usually grab the road atlas from Vanessa’s knee, prop in open on the steering wheel, instantly discern where we were, and head off in the right direction. Naturally, I was not altogether calm about sharing my displeasure at this run of events.

I think the worst was when Vanessa told me to turn right onto “the squiggly blue road”. That turned out to be the River Nene. Or when I pointed out that the reason we were heading the wrong way down a motorway was probably because she had the road atlas open upside down.

A few carefully selected words of disapproval – alright, a rant – would generally culminate in me throwing the road atlas from where it was propped on the steering wheel back on her knee. As it was so large and heavy, it made a satisfying thump as it landed. Only one time, it didn’t quite work out like that.

Dizzy from circumnavigating a roundabout a dozen times - as Vanessa had suggested each exit in turn until we finally hit upon the correct one - my navigator-wife decided to retrieve a mint from the glove compartment. She was leaning forward as I, busy finishing my pontificating about whether it would serve us both better if she rode in the boot, or even in a separate vehicle altogether, flung the road atlas in her direction.

The hard backed spine bounced off her head, ricocheted off the gear lever, and landed in the foot well. If she had ever had a brain cell capable of learning to navigate before that event, I had probably completely obliterated it with the blow. Despite my fuming, even to me, it was clear something radical needed to change. We couldn’t risk Vanessa sustaining brain damage every time we took a wrong turning – it was just too frequent an occurrence.

So I went out – that very afternoon – and bought a new road atlas with a soft cover. That way, if it ever bounced off her head again, it was liable to do a lot less damage. It took another six years before it dawned upon me that maybe there was another alternative…

Talking to People…In Queues

I have just read the guide to a literary festival near us and it states, under Queue Etiquette: ‘please talk to the person next to you’. It doesn’t actually specify whether the person you’re meant to be gabbing to is the individual in front or behind you (which could cause some confusion) but it was enough to make me vow never to go to that festival again. If some stranger is going to accost me in a queue and start to talk – well, count me out.

The only person I have ever spoken to at the festival in previous years was – appropriately enough – a world expert on autism, Professor Baron-Cohen. He had just given a talk and, as is the form at these shindigs, I was in a queue – mercifully without the new requirement to socialise – for him to sign his latest book, which I had just purchased (without the usual online discount) at the festival bookshop.

The queue wasn’t long but was incredibly slow. One person, with signed book in hand, whispered to those of us still queuing as he left the signing tent, “The Professor likes to talk!” He does. I hadn’t thought of that. At the last book signing I went to, I said one word, and that was my name for the dedication. What the hell would Professor Baron-Cohen want to talk about?

I began to get nervous. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. The queue shuffled forward and my hands started to go clammy. Perhaps I should just leave now and go home. But then, I looked at the hugely overpriced book in my hand and realised that, without a signature, I’d just wasted £7.99.

I began to rehearse in my head things I might say. ‘Nice to meet you’, ‘Good talk – I enjoyed it immensely’, and ‘I’ve actually got Aspergers myself’. Then it struck me: he was a world expert on autism. His life was spent researching people like me. He’d know exactly the pressure I felt having to speak to him and would understand completely if I wasn’t exactly fluent. End of problem. Except, then I thought: maybe I won’t behave like someone with autism and he’ll think I’m a fraud. How does someone with autism behave in these circumstances? Maybe I’ll come across as too cool and collected and he’ll think I’m an Asperger-wannabe.

The queue shuffled ever closer until there was only one more person before me. I noticed what page in the book the Professor liked to sign and opened my copy to the same page. That should speed things along a little.

Finally, I reached the signing table and the Professor smiled a greeting. At least, I think he smiled a greeting. I was looking at the wall behind him at the time. He tried to break the ice.

“Where have you come from today”, he asked.

“From the big tent”, I replied. And then I helpfully gestured across the manicured lawn to the location of the talk. I do realise now that’s not what he meant. I also added, although probably somewhat redundantly at this stage, “I’ve actually got Aspergers myself”.

Professor Baron-Cohen was kind, engaging, and extremely supportive. I even got his agreement to look at a research paper I was writing. And he signed my book, with my name. As I was leaving I did consider saying something to those still waiting in the queue, explaining the long wait they were enduring. However, as it wasn’t a specific requirement of the festival guide at that stage, I didn’t bother. But if you are ever in a queue at this or any other literary festival and see someone with sweaty hands, nervously thumbing a book, and glancing longingly at the exit, please remember the Queue Etiquette for Asperger People, and keep absolutely and totally silent.

My Dog Has No Clue. How Does He Cope? Terribly.

It was when he was a puppy that I realised Mabon – my huge, goofy dog – was either born with Aspergers or else he had caught it from me. That became apparent the first time I took him to puppy class.

Now Mabon had been to the vet several times already and loved it. True, he liked sprawling behind doors that opened inwards, meaning nobody could either get in or out of the waiting room during the duration of his visit but, hey, he was calm, relaxed, and chilled. So when it came to needles…pah.

After that, puppy class should be easy I thought. Well…for the dog. I was dreading it with the same intensity I reserve for a Sunday morning visit from the Mormons.

On the designated evening, Mabon poked his head through the door of the class, saw a ragged row of other puppies doing things like chewing the floor, defecating, and pulling the ears off smaller rivals, and dug his heels in there and then. Literally. He had splinters by the time I had dragged him to the far end of the timber-covered floor. Once there, Mabon sat under a table with his back to the room. That’s my dog!

It was only once he’d been pulled out from the table three times and lined up to engage in the first exercise that Mabon decided to make friends with the dog to his left. He did this by sticking his face into that of the other dog’s. He had his nose bitten. But hell, at least that was a reaction. So he did it again. And got his nose bitten. This went on. Now you might think, stupid dog, but, in truth, it was his companion at the other end of the lead – me – who should have probably taken charge and stopped his poor hound’s nose being lacerated. But I didn’t. So we both stood there like Muppets. At least I wasn’t bleeding.

First up was a sit exercise. I said SIT nice and loud…and Mabon looked at me as if I’d finally gone completely insane. Next, I tried DOWN. Mabon yawned. ‘Try to get him to play,’ was the suggestion from the instructor. She gave me a soft toy, which I passed on to Mabon. He took it in his mouth, turned, spat, and said toy went sliding across the floor.

We then tried walking on the lead past the other dogs. Mabon was completely terrified and pressed himself so close to me it was as if I was wearing dog trousers. The instructor was impressed and we became the demonstration models for walking to heel. This means we had to do it twice more until Mabon started visibly shaking and was allowed back to sit under his table.

To end the class, there was a recall exercise. All the other dogs were brilliant and returned to their owners like bullets. When it came to Mabon’s turn, he had to be dragged from under his table to take pride of place in the middle of the room, all on his own. He hunkered down and tried to look inconspicuous, which was a challenge considering he was three times the size of the next largest puppy. I was at the far edge of the room and, feeling as much unease as my dog, called his name. Nothing. Not a flicker of recognition. I dropped to my haunches and tried again. Mabon shrunk even lower. Some of the others at the class started to make encouraging noises. Even the dog who has torn Mabon’s nose to shreds was rooting for him. Mabon did nothing. I called him again and again, my voice taking on the urgency of someone with Aspergers who had suddenly found himself the centre of attention and did not like it. Just like Mabon.

It was on the fifth call that Mabon finally looked up at me with such a plaintive, pleading expression that I suddenly saw myself in his position…in the middle of the room…with everyone staring. How could I have done this to him? I did not call him again. Instead, I stood upright and strode over to him, my footsteps echoing around the now silent room. Reaching Mabon, I picked him up, turned on my heel, and walked straight out the door.

We did not go back.