My very first girl friend hinted that she wanted a birthday present that would last for all eternity. So I got her a coffin...
A little one, you know, a doll size one. I made it myself. I'm very good with my hands. She thought I was cruel to play such a joke. It was no joke. I wouldn't know a joke if you told me one. But you know, she should have said she wanted a diamond. I have Asperger syndrome, a form of Autism, and I have a tendency to take everything literal. Yet, I am high functioning enough to be aware that when people tell me to take a chair, I do not pick it up and carry it off; I sit on it. I try to be observant and interpret what people actually mean when they do or say something. It is hard and very confusing at times, but you know, the way I see it, that's life.
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I am not a savant but I do have a special sort of talent. I can focus. I mean I can really focus. I can hit a baseball with a bat no matter how fast it comes at me. When a female is talking to me, face to face, I focus on her lips and her tongue flashing behind her really white teeth. I do not hear a word she is saying. I think that is why I can't keep a girl friend too long. But you know, I don't have that trouble with males. When they talk face to face with me, I focus on their left ear. I think it bothers them, but I hear every word. That is why I don't have many male friends either. But you know, it doesn't bother me. It should, but it doesn't. I have my laptop and my no fault life.
I, also, have an excellent memory. I remember the experiences of my childhood, but you know, being born wasn't one of them. My very first childhood memory was of two total strangers staring down on me. I later realize that they were my parents leaning over the rail of my crib, and I remember my mother accidently dropping cigarettes ashes on my forehead. But you know, in those days everyone smoked. Later on, my father claimed that those ashes caused me to became obsessive compulsive and masturbative, in that order. There is no such word as masturbative, but you know, it sounds nice so I thought I would use it. I remember those years when my father and mother didn't get along at all. It was the turn of the century and they were immigrants from the old country where marriages were arranged. They had such an arrangement: they didn't meet until the day before their wedding, and she's been angry ever since. Luckily, I was the way I was or I would have been traumatized by their unusual relationship. But you know, I've been told that a lot of married couples hate each other and still stay together.
Not only did I have OCD (obsessive, compulsive, disorder), I also had asthma and was a sickly child during most of my youth. I was absent from grammar school often. On those days, I was in bed, propped up by pillows with an inhaler by my side, and listening to soap operas on the radio. But you know, we lived in a two room apartment and the bed I slept on was a pull out sofa. I remember clearly one day, when I was about eight years old, listening to Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet. It was being played on a soap opera sponsored by a soap company. I guess that is why they call it a soap opera. I was sick in bed alone because both parents were working.
Anyway, I found a book of matches (for a long time, I though a book of matches was a real hollowed out book containing matches). I stood up in bed, leaned over the head rest, lit a match and dropped them through the space between the sofa and the wall. It was fun watching the burning matches flaming to the ground. I pretended I was a bomber pilot dropping incendiaries and I was dropping them one at a time until I had used up the whole book. But, you know, there was an electric cord tacked along the baseboard right where the matches were landing.
When the firemen came, I opened the door for them dressed in pajamas and a ratty brown bathrobe that brushed the floor.
If it had happened today, my parents would have been charged with child neglect and child endangerment, and I would have been sent to a foster home. But you know, there were no social workers then, so the only rebukes I got were hugs and kisses from my mother and a shaking of the head from my father. That was the extent of my punishment. Like I said, I was never really to blame for anything.
The landlord kicked us out.
There's so much more to this story but I have to stop because my batteries on my laptop are running out, and I have to find out where they went.
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