My Autism Insights

Once upon a time there was a woman named Mrs. Practical, and she had a friend named Stereo.  Stereo had always been a reliable and loyal friend, and so even though he grew old and obsolete (he even still had exposed speaker wires that had to be hooked up and a cassette player) she could never part with him.  He had been with her since she had her first home, and had survived two cats and three moves.  Mr. Married-To-Practical had often wondered why she kept him, but she just answered, “He may come in handy one day.”

Mrs. Practical eventually had a baby boy, named The Boy, who soon came to be nicknamed Destructo.  He was a sweet child, but had the uncanny power to destroy anything he touched, usually with little or no harm to himself.  He was like a living Tasmanian Devil, just without the ink or dust clouds.  At the age of two, The Boy maimed another friend of Mrs. Practical’s: Thirty-Six-Inch Television.  That was when he earned the name Destructo.

As Destructo grew, and the furnishings became shabbier and shabbier, his parents decided to give him a small radio – he loved music.  Destructo did rather well, and the radio lasted over a year, unlike the $80 globe that did not even make the year mark and is not permanently silenced.  Unfortunately, the radio was dropped one time too many and the CD reading mechanism joined countless other items in the black hole of their home.

Mrs. Practical debated.  Music was almost a necessity in The Boy’s life because of his noise sensitivity, but simply buying another radio for him would send a terrible message that he didn’t have to work to take better care of his things.  It was a terrible, hand-wringing dilemma.  Finally, she searched in the cupboard beneath the stairs (which is a perfectly acceptable home for anything that is not an eleven-year-old wizard) and found her old friend, Stereo.  They had a chat.  “Will you do it, old friend?  It will be dangerous.”  But he was a brave stereo, and he agreed to come out of his peaceful resting place to live in The Boy’s room.

All was well for over a month.

But then, at five a.m. one rainy morning, Mrs. Practical heard a crash coming from The Boy’s room.  Mr. Married-To-Practical rushed in.  The Boy was fine, but – Oh no! – Stereo lay in pieces on the ground!  Of course it was an accident; it was nearly always an accident.  But what to do for poor stereo?

Mrs. Practical knew Stereo better than anyone, and with deft fingers she patiently put him back together.  She tested his speakers and breathed a sigh of relief when everything was working.  But when she went to plug The Boy’s headphones back in, she saw with a sad heart that the headphone jack was gone.  They searched high and low – it was nowhere to be found.  Mrs. Practical wrapped up all Stereo’s wires and gently carried him back to her room, otherwise known as Cuba (because the children were not allowed to go in there alone without express, written permission in quadruplicate), where he is currently recovering peacefully.

She is now faced with the same dilemma she had before, and to this day, Mrs. Practical does not know what she is going to do.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS