Published on 12, July, 2020
Thanks to Number in another thread (root beer) I've been thinking of the many things I've just 'not got' and done wrong.
Usually the clue that I'm not 'getting it' is the look of wonder on the faces of other people.
I'm suspecting now this may be autism related.
There are countless examples during my life but here a few.
McDonalds: I don't really understand McDonalds and I don't spend time in them without another person.
My mum used to like them so I'd take her there for lunch sometimes.
One of the 1st times she asked me to collect a menu for her and some cutlery.
I couldn't understand why these weren't on the table.
So, I went to the counter and asked for these things.
After this initial trauma, I then had the trauma of trying to understand what you are supposed to eat off of and with.
Doh.
McDonalds is a particular thing with me I think.
I was with my autistic friend on our way back from visiting his mother and we went to a McD.
He asked me to get him a 'root beer'.
So, I asked for such at the counter only to be asked what that is.
I said 'I don't know' so no root beer was presented to my friend.
Another prime example is going to a spa and swimming baths in a hotel.
I'm not a swimmer or a spa goer.
So, the 1st thing I did was put my make-up on before going there.
Then, I couldn't understand how the lockers worked and had to get assistance.
Then, I eventually found the toilets but couldn't find my way back to the swimming pool so I walked through reception soaking wet in my swimming costume.
I was also in a church once when a service began and loads of people sat around me.
I had gone in there because I was in a strange city and cold and was using the church as a refuge.
I thought I could just sit there whilst the service took place.
I hadn't anticipated communion and although I'm not a Catholic or a church goer, and although I didn't understand what I was doing, I felt obliged to follow everyone up and take communion.
There are so many examples I won't continue.
Is it just me or are there other people here who just don't 'get it?'.
Self-service checkouts. I have no idea why, but they seem to have all been designed by people to whom logic is a foreign concept. They ask gnomic or ambiguous questions and offer options that seem irrelevant to what I want to do; I never know which option to press. I'm a former scientist who operated complex computer-controlled machines like mass spectrometers, but self-service tills defeat me every time.
I always get in bother with self service tills. I usually end up with someone coming to reset it at least once so I might as well have stood in a queue. And I usually end up talking to the machine about whatever it is saying.
I have a self-service checkout story gone wrong too.
In short, I got so worried that I hadn’t paid for a bag of items once, that I ended up going back to the shops and paying for them again.
I didn’t get a receipt on that occasion and in the short drive home, I’d convinced myself that I hadn’t actually paid and that I was suddenly a shop lifter and, by the extent of my worries you’d have thought I was on the most wanted list. I couldn’t move past my worries though went and spoke to the shop who, I imagine, we’re only too happy to take my money again!It was only a couple of days later where I saw the money had come out twice from my bank that I realised what I’d done. I’ve vowed to be a bit more level headed from that point on about these sorts of things.