Gala Performance

You may have read an op-ed in the Washington Post titled What Poor Frustration Tolerance Can Look Like In Girls With Autism, which focused on “Alison’s” difficulty shifting gears, difficulty foreseeing consequences of actions, and struggles with impulse control. 

I am Alison. The details of the scenario itself were wrong, and my frustrations were completely unrelated to autism. Here’s what actually happened.

It started really simply. I took one look at the costume for my school’s fall concert and thought No, don’t wear this, I don't look good in it, I don’t look good in anything.

It’s not my fault I don’t look good in it. I think somebody uploaded a picture of those old Benetton sweater dresses, asked ChatGPT to produce a sewing pattern, and then worked off of those to make the costumes.

Even if you take into consideration the fact that those Benetton sweater dresses didn't look good on anybody to begin with, AI-generated sewing patterns have these disastrous layouts and incorrect measurements that ask you to cut too much or too little fabric. If by some miracle you manage to put it together, there’s no way in hell it’s gonna look like what you were expecting. And it sure as shit won't fit anyone correctly. 

My parents quickly pulled me out of that concert. They gave the school grief, and the school told them to shut up. 

I made up for it though. I, a fresher, and Lydia Balmoral, one of the juniors, got invited to do a performance at High Impact, We Day’s indie music festival. It's the one where the stage has the map of Africa with the word Asia written across the banjo neck.

Our performance was a duet. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera”. I did the Phantom's part on trombone and Lydia did Christine's part on clarinet. I wore a dress that was red with gold flowers and those sleeves that look like giant, pointy t-shirt sleeves. Lydia wore a dress that's royal blue with silver thistles (of course) and long sleeves. We looked like the Faberge Barbies if they were built to last, the blue one had a platinum blonde Karen haircut, and the red one had a bit of scarring from a poorly executed chemical peel. 

We've had our fair share of pain getting this under sail. Originally, we'd planned for me to do Christine’s part on trombone and Lydia to do the Phantom’s part on bagpipes. Less than 24 hours before go time, the stage manager sends us a nasty email telling us that bagpipes aren't an instrument. Consequently, we had a limited window to rehearse our piece where we played each other's parts. Whoever has the louder instrument plays the Phantom’s part, otherwise it doesn’t work.

Another surprise awaited us once we arrived. Everyone had a surgical mask on. A few people had it matching their outfit, but most of them just had blue paper ones.

Some lady with bright yellow hair, black surgical mask, cat’s eye glasses, and a name tag that said Daisy looked at us. I presumed she was the stage manager. “Why aren't you guys masked?”

“What?” I asked. Half of it was surprise, the other half of it was not being able to understand what the stage manager was saying because I couldn’t read her lips

Daisy gestured to everyone else. “Look around you,” she said, “You need to be masked.” 

“Really?” I asked. 

“Yes,” she nodded.

“Even on stage?”

"Yes”

My eyebrows came together so quickly you could put a quarter between them and have it stand up. “Why are you telling me this now?” I shouted, “I feel like this is something you should have told the performers well before the event"

"Well, you should have come prepared,” Daisy remarked.

“What the hell does that mean?”

Daisy began to talk to me like I was a Labradoodle. "As you may know, Kelly Clarkson has been diagnosed with leukemia and, due to the chemotherapy, is quite immunocompromised. We have asked performers to wear masks during the show. It’s bad enough that she has to wait in her car till you’re both masked.”

My mouth hung open like a drive-thru speaker. “You're kidding, right?”

Daisy shook her head. “There's no kidding around when it comes to chemotherapy crapping up your immune system,” she responded. 

“How the hell am I supposed to play trombone with a mask on?” I shouted.

Daisy looked at me with her head on one side. “You…don’t,” she responded. She looked at the trombone, then looked back at me. “Why do you even have a trombone to begin with?”

Daisy’s stupid question made me angry. “Do not get me started, because I will…”

Lydia pulled me aside after this. I know exactly what’s coming next. The good thing about the upper years is that they have no compunction about telling you how you screwed up, especially if they came to America from abroad.

I took a deep breath and spoke. “Before you start,” I began, “yes, I am aware of how badly I screwed up, and…”

Lydia looked at me in surprise. “I wasn't going to say that at all,” she said, “I agree with you.”

I didn’t expect her to agree with me, especially considering how much of a scene I made. “What?” I responded, “You think that I was caught off guard?”

“Oh, aye,” Lydia nodded, “but it goes beyond that.”

“I bet it does,” I agreed. 

Lydia said something that more or less confirmed that there was way more to this requirement than the stage manager was telling us. “I'm convinced she made this up.”

My eyebrows did the best impression of Volkswagens trying to park. “Kelly Clarkson?” I said, befuddled. “She lied about having cancer?” Of all the showbiz folk that I can think of, she actually strikes me as the least likely to lie about having cancer.

“No, but if your immune system is that messed up, you're far better off to either dial into the show via Skype or wear something with a beefier filter. I'm convinced the stage manager is making this up so she doesn't have to deal with wind players.”

It alarmed me how much that tracked. We only found out we needed to wear masks after we got here, and there was nothing to suggest that there was a bin of masks for people that didn’t bring their own, so that means everyone brought their own, which means they probably received some communication from either the stage manager or the venue that masks are required, and we did not. I think they actively excluded anybody they booked who played a wind instrument when they sent the email bulletin saying that masks were required during the performance. I didn’t see anybody else with wind instruments there, so either we were the only wind players signed up for this thing or any other wind players who showed up got sent home for not following the mask rule.

Before either one of us could say anything else, Daisy bought it in. “Really?” she said,  “You didn’t think I wouldn’t hear that?”

I groaned, “OK now what?”

Daisy shook her head. “That has to be the stupidest excuse ever,” she tsked, “It’s not either everyone masks or Kelly wears a respirator, everyone masks around Kelly and she also wears a respirator.”

I can see it coming a mile away. I know she’s about to rant about fit testing. “I think you're letting perfect be the enemy of good here.”

She didn’t listen. She didn’t even look at me. She looked at Lydia. “Also, Lydia, you’ll need to put your clarinet in a bag with slits for your hands as you’re playing.”

Lydia didn't even flinch. “No,” she shook her head, “I'm tone deaf and I need to see where my fingers are so I can play properly.”

Daisy rolled her eyes. “That excuse was even worse than the last one.”

What remained of Lydia's patience left the building upon hearing that. She launched into a rant. “Awright, listen tae me you wee shit, I know what's going on here! First you wait until less than 24 hours of our timeslot before you tell me bagpipes aren't an instrument then you feed us this bullshit line about Kelly Clarkson and her leukemia. I know it’s bullshit because if Kelly Clarkson really did have leukemia, it would’ve been all over the news. Media outlets go bonkers when celebrities have cancer.”

Everybody stopped what they were doing and stared at us. Lydia didn't stop. “We all know stage managers cannae handle wind players!” she gestured to everyone else, “You may have fooled them, but nae us! Alison and I both know that you’re lying!”

Usually, when people get caught in a lie like that, especially if the rant that exposes the lie results in staring, they panic. Either they start spouting more nonsense that digs themselves deeper, or they run away. Daisy did neither. “Can you speak English? Because I don't speak Mexican.”

Now, as hard as it may have been for us to believe, the rant was indeed in English.  As was what she said next: “Fuck you!”

We got sent home. I learned two things that day. People will put more effort into excuses to get out of doing things than they will to do the actual thing. Flipping out or getting taken aback by something doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong. 

@creativepromptfills

Movie Quotes

During an event at Fallingwater, I got overly tired and stimmed like crazy. I dropped random lines from the last movie I watched. 

To my surprise, Valerie Passafiume stormed out of the living room. She booked it past the stone fireplace like a centipede missing 98 of its legs. Everyone stared at me. Clearly, something I said royally pissed her off, but I had no idea what it could have possibly been.

Tethys Johnson shot me a judgemental glare. “Now, I know you like to think that you're the good guy in your movie, but we can’t all be heroes. Some of us have to be the villains.”

"Are you saying that I'm the bad guy in Valerie’s movie?" I asked. Of course, it's more likely that I'm the weird side character in Tethys’s movie.

Tethys shook her head. “Oh, she made it very clear that you are the bad guy in her movie!” she pointed at me.

The room fell silent. Everybody's still glared at me, even though I had no idea what I did wrong. After a few minutes, it occurred to me that it was probably nothing and Tethys only said what she said for the sake of some sort of appearance.

Valerie had cooled off enough to come in from outside, but I still doubt she was ready to talk. “Euphemia, what you said hurt,” she said, glaring at me. 

“I'm so sorry about that,” I said, “I hope you saw Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” 

Valerie disgustedly furrowed her brow. “What is that?” she snipped. 

“It’s a movie about these two guys who are scam artists, and…”

Valerie waved her hands at me and shushed aggressively. I don't think she cooled off enough to talk just yet. I still don't understand how she’d take that line I quoted so personally. 

The whole thing brought back memories of frequently getting in trouble at school for quoting movies.

I don't quote movies the way a “normal” person does. I script. Scripting is a stim where people recite quotes from TV, movies, etc. The person might recite the scripts solely to, and for, themselves. Some autistics can even act out entire scenes on their own. 

Scripting can occur simultaneously alongside a conversation, but we don’t intend for the scripts to be part of the conversation itself. The problems happen when people outside the autistic person’s household typically don’t understand what they're doing. Especially when they repeat something inappropriate. And because of this, we have to be careful about what media comes into the house.  

I was extremely lucky that many of my teachers understood the words carried no meaning, but sometimes it didn’t matter. I’d still get in trouble for it from time to time.

After getting told off, they’d tell me the consequences and make me promise not to do it again. Then, the next situation arises and I’d say something else. Because they didn’t understand it was a stim, they’d assume whatever consequence wasn’t enough, so they’d turn up the heat. It wouldn’t work, and after a time of bigger and bigger consequences, they’d accuse me of wanting to be a bad person. They would ascribe character flaws such as stubbornness and meanness. It doesn’t end well for anyone, especially me.

Once, it got bad enough that I came within a hair’s breadth of getting restrained. To this day, I am still not sure how I talked my way out of that, but I did. It’s even more impressive when you consider I was 12 at the time.  

These days, I am thankfully aware enough to avoid this. I keep a mental inventory of what’s safe to incorporate versus what isn't. Today was the first time scripting something “safe” caused a problem.

Realistically, I shouldn't worry about upsetting Valerie because it probably wasn’t my fault. People can be weird. 

I had to get away from everybody else. I exited the living room and went to one of the balconies overlooking the waterfall. Tethys caught up to me. “Hey Euphemia,” she said, “I just want to say you aren’t in trouble.”

I tipped my head to one side. “I’m not?” I asked. That would explain why I had so much trouble figuring out what I said that was wrong.

“No,” Tethys replied, “I went through the same find-fault-with-everything phase Valerie’s going through, right down to the thing that triggered it”

Her comment piqued my interest. “OK, then,” I asked as I leaned attentively, “What triggered it?” 

Tethys told me everything. On her eleventh birthday, her dad went to pay for parking at the Lego store in Harrisburg, and he discovered his card was declined the hard way. A trip to the bank "reassured" him that the card was fine and the problem lay with the machine. 

The next day, he discovered that things were not fine with the card and he needed to call the bank. He waited on hold for 4 hours before the bank closed with him waiting to speak with a representative. As it happened on a Friday, he had to call them back on Monday. 

Come Monday, her father called the bank again. They told him that there was nothing they could do because he didn’t notify them right away, which he did. After an expletive-laden tirade about how they told him everything was fine and how they ignored him waiting, they asked him to see a psychiatrist and come back after being screened for mental illness. 

Twelve days later, her dad got an appointment with the psychiatrist, who wrote him a prescription for Cyanex. “Are those cyanide pills?” I asked.

Tethys nodded. “He took the pills that evening and died in his sleep,” she said, sighing heavily. I could tell she still missed her father. “I don't think he knew what they were.” 

“He should have recognized something was up when the prescription was for something that sounded vaguely like cyanide,” I responded. I hope what I said didn’t rub her the wrong way.

“Now, here’s where it gets interesting,” Tethys said. She put aside missing her father to explain what happened right before he died, “The night Dad got his pills, I did something that made Dad mad. He said he’d discuss my actions with me the following morning. I never found out what I did wrong because he died overnight.”

“So, your dad died and didn't tell you what you did wrong?” 

“Exactly,” she said, “and it's the same thing with Valerie. She did something she wasn’t supposed to and one of her parents died without telling her what she did. all she can do is take offense to literally everything because she’s still guessing what she did wrong.”

I laughed. “I never would have guessed that you went through an offended-by-everything phase.”

“That’s because I grew out of it,” she chuckled. She nervously look back towards the house. “Valerie hasn’t, and I don't think she will.” 

@creativepromptfills