Published on 12, July, 2020
Please feel free to list your experiences with literal thinking or related behaviours whenever you feel like it, and whether these are important or as typically ridiculous as my recent example:
* I ordered a 'personalised' t-shirt from Ebay, graced with the word 'AUTISTIC' in gigantic, glowing capital letters. Wearing this shirt, I thought, would save me the tedium of explaining my more unusual words or deeds to others whenever it might be necessary. Hooray! Alas, after receiving the shirt I realised that it's Winter & resultingly bloomin' freezing so it's likely that the shirt is now as useless as I habitually am. If I wear the neon monstrosity that is the shirt under an opened jacket, its essential message - which ludicrously dwarfs the famous HOLLYWOOD sign, such are my design-skills - will either be lost on the NT crowd, or else appear as some kind of short, ironic and post-sexist anagram. Doh.
I've always been a literal thinker and don't read between the lines (no surprise there).
I worked with someone who spoke about her 'little girl' for months before I came to a certain realisation.
So, throughout that time I had the feeling that her 'little girl' was rather odd and did things other little girls don't do.
Finally, the person I worked with said 'my little girl ran in from the garden, jumped on my bed and licked me face'.
Realisation struck.
I said 'is your little girl an animal by any chance?' and she said, yes, 'a dog'.
Doh.
To be fair people treating animals like literal kids is a bit - weird. And I say that with a full and ironic sense of self awareness. I mean I'm a great animal lover, my first career path of choice was going to be a veterinarian, but an animal is an animal and a kid is a kid.
Exactly, I don’t understand why some people refer to their dogs as kids. Although I understand how meaningful pets can be and how they can become part of the family.