Hey y’all, I hope that everyone is having a happy Friday.  I am.

The sun came out.

I found my hustle.

There is wine in my house.

Nachos for dinner.

It’s all good.

 

Anyway, here is my 2nd in my Autism reposts that I’m doing for Autism Awareness month.

How well I remember this day.  It was snowing, James was home from school because of a problem with his meds.  After this, in fact, we took him off meds and he adjusted fine.  It was just that day….all bets were off.  That employee, Talon, what a nice guy.  I wish that I had a picture of him in his sleeveless t-shirt, with his muscles and his mohawk and his million dollar smile.  It was a magic moment.  Anyway, I hope that you enjoy this repost.

Originally posted on January 22, 2008.

A Trip to Sam’s…

can be so very interesting. On Friday, I took my oldest and youngest sons with me on several errands. The last stop on our list was Sam’s. And, even though we had been having a pleasant and uneventful day with errands so far, I was only cautiously optimistic. After all, my oldest, James, was off of his meds. And when he is off his meds the barrier between what he is thinking and what he will say is very faint — if it is there at all. Much to my surprise, it went fine. And, all except for one close call when I had to get James away from a very interesting looking biker-dude before he could remark about his tatoos,  and one other brief moment when James  was doing some interpretive dancing in the middle of the produce department, we were having what was, for us, a unremarkable trip.

We checked out and were heading for the door when we had to stop for the employee at the door to check our receipt against the purchases in our cart. Now, I had never seen this employee before. He was named — and I’m not making this up — Talon. And the visage that went with this name was pretty impressive. He definitely looked like he could hold his own in any scuffle. He had just finished counting the things in my cart and handed me my receipt when he turned around and came face to face with James, who was very interested in Talon. James leaned in toward Talon and, awed,  half-whispered, “Hey, Talon, are you………..tough?”

Amused, Talon smiled really big and replied with half a chuckle, “Not really, no.”  

And I laughed all the way to the van.