I can see how this stuff is confusing to people with autism

Hello Everyone,

My understanding of autism is that those on the spectrum have difficulty with social cues. Looking people in the eye, understanding sarcasm, etc. Stuff that comes pretty natural to those who are not on the spectrum, more or less. But if you think about if, a lot of our social interactions can seem pretty confusing.

Gently making fun of those you care about is common, at least where I grew up. It's weird because outright mocking them is mean, but somehow, a bit of fun at their expense is a sign that you are close. I was thinking about this recently when I helped my dad move a couch.

Now, my dad is a wonderful person on many levels, but if he were to bake a cake, it would somehow involve a tractor and power tools. I know this, because moving that couch involved a tractor and power tools.

Granted, using a tractor to move a couch makes more sense than it does for baking a cake, but still, it doesn't immediately spring to mind. We took the couch out the front door of the cottage and used the tractor to get it up the hill to the back door.

Where it didn't fit. So we had to tractor it back down and try to get it up the stairs. That's where the power tools come in. We used those to take the banisters off. We also took off the framed pictures and light bulb from the stairwell. It was a big couch.

By this point, Peter, our neighbour, had joined the struggle. After a solid hour of working at it, we finally got the couch moved. Up a single storey.

Afterwards, we had beers at Peter's place where we complained about how things used to be made better and modern stuff is junk. I felt at home.

wes