Autism Sensurround

Dan is home for summer break. He has been busily burning new DVD's.

His abuse of DVD drives is legendary. Over the years, he stuffed so many dirty and damaged disks into the G5's internal drive that it finally gave up the ghost. For the last 2 years, if you try to put a disk into the internal hard drive it is never read, and makes noise which are the mechanical version of wailing and gnashing of teeth for an indefinite period, until that disk's time in purgatory has been served and it is released to go to disk heaven.

So, it was no surprise when the external DVD burner gave up the ghost today. This necessitated a trip to acquire its replacement.

I'll say one thing for going to the store towing a 13 year old with autism and Tourette's: you quickly see which store clerks have any awareness and self preservation instincts. The guys at the Apple Store scored very highly on these scales, meeting me at the door while swearing up and down that whatever I was looking for, they didn't carry it. (OK, in the interests of fairness, they only said that about external DVD burners.) The guy at the Mac store, however, was going to give me his full unhurried chatty customer service.

Meanwhile, Dan went to the demo computers whirring on desks across the store.

I Looked at Dan. I looked at the clerk. The clerk did not take the hint. He couldn't find a DVD burner on the shelf. He flashes a dazzling customer service smile, and offers to go the extra mile by looking it up in their inventory. He strides with purpose to a customer service computer, and ponders the responses to his opening keystrokes.

Meanwhile, Dan has zeroed in on the computer hooked up to the Bose mega sound system, complete with satellite subwoofer.

Earnest Clerk returns. He doesn't think they have any, but he is going to quiz Stockroom Guy, saying "our inventory database isn't the most intuitive." He disappears.

Danny launches Safari. He types "Thomas" into the Google Search window, and uses the thumbnail video screen shots to navigate to the YouTube offerings of Thomas The Tank Engine videos.

Earnest Clerk returns from the stockroom with the external DVD burner we so desperately need under his arm. He tries to patiently explain all its features as I happily interrupt him with, "That's just the one I was hoping you'd have. Let's ring it up!" I speed towards the checkout counter, hoping to pull him along in my wake.

Too late. The opening notes of the Thomas theme reverberate through the store. The steam whistle blows. You know, with a really good sound system, it sounds just like you are really in a train yard.

A rapid calculation ensues. I am at the checkout counter, and Dan is 30 or 40 feet away and very happy. Good luck has led the other customers to vacate the store before the performance started. It's just me and the employees. The calculation is that the best strategy here is to finish the transaction ASAP. Devil take the hindmost.

To their credit, only 2 of the employees appeared to be in pain from being subjected to Thomas the Tank Engine at arena rock volumes.

Earnest Clerk got full marks. He showed no clue that there was anything going on beyond him chatting about which of the three addresses in the customer database he should use and how they came to be, about the return and restocking policy and fee, and did I need a bag?

I thanked him, went with the DVD burner to Dan and entered the keyboard commands to quit Safari, and walked with Dan to the door as peace and tranquility returned to the store.

"Have a nice day! Thanks for coming in" was the benediction as Dan and I did the recessional out the front door.

Somewhere there is a crowd of people who could read this story and be absolutely certain that this story is a shocking confession of failure to exert parental control of a child's behavior. I would be interested in seeing how any of them would do in a 15 minute matchup with a teen affected by autism and Tourette's. They have no effing clue.