Autism and ageing

I think the world is becoming less and less autism-friendly. So it's harder for us to deal with. E.g. when I was growing up you had to walk a mile to a phone box to make a call, I think I was nearly 10 before we got a phone in the house. Now a phone is a computer, TV, diary, camera.... permanently in your pocket, permanently contactable. Shops used to have little choice in the 70s and 80s, now there's about 10 types of apple, when we used to only have 'red' or 'green'. Too much choice is exhausting. The constant noise of people, traffic, car stereos, TV, aeroplanes, alarms, beeps, pings when the kettle boils, the microwave/washing machine/dishwasher is done.

Actually a choice of apples is something I miss, we get around 4 or 5 here and none are my favourites. I used to live under the Heathrow flight path and we could hear concorde and its boom even when we couldn't see it, I've swapped that now for the sound of fighter jets training pilots and helicopters. I agree that the world has got more noisy, even my washing machine sings a little song when it finished. I wonder if car stereo's are as loud inside the car as they outside? One things I remember from childhood that dies seem to have got quieter or at least differently noisy are tills in shops. I remember when the assistant had to add everything up in her head and press keys like the ones on an old manual typewriter to ring up the correct amount. Woolworths at xmas was a barrage of noise, tills with buttons that worked like a adding machine were so much quieter.

You reminded me with the tills of something that used to frighten me as a child. In a few shops, small department stores I think. I don't think they had tills, but if you paid and needed change they put the money behind a little door and it disappeared, then when the change came back it suddenly shot down a shute and made me jump.

On the plus side, now quite a few people in my area have electric cars it is so much more pleasant when walking and they quietly pass me.

You reminded me with the tills of something that used to frighten me as a child. In a few shops, small department stores I think. I don't think they had tills, but if you paid and needed change they put the money behind a little door and it disappeared, then when the change came back it suddenly shot down a shute and made me jump.

On the plus side, now quite a few people in my area have electric cars it is so much more pleasant when walking and they quietly pass me.