The Accidental Comic!

And who said Autists don't have any sense of humour... Our 'Bob' doesn't set out to be funny, and he's far from the class clown.  I’d like to say he was a prankster but that would mean he planned what he was doing and more often than not it simply happens! It can be strangely humorous when it does.  I'd like to believe that there is a funny button in his brain which gets switched on in very much the same manner as is the compulsion to press the red buttons; There is no plan and it usually occurs without any warm up!

When I look back he's been doing it most of his life and it wasn’t until he was older it became more obvious.  Our 'Bob' does love a giggle but his funniest moments are usually tied in with his little 'tinker' trait!  The first time an incident caused a memorable ruckus, 'Bob' was three years old.  I'd received the infamous beckoning hand from his Nursery Teacher, and off I shuffle to get a parental grilling.  I seriously don't know how she kept her face straight, I'm confronted with the statement

 "He's spent most of the day in Reception!"

 I'm starting to get somewhat twitchy at this point, and ask

 "So what's he been up to this time?" with a slight head cock to the right.

 "He managed to make the whole class cry!" 

Wow! That was an achievement for a three year old, Crikey what the hell has he been up to!

It transpires that my son had a real passion for switching the classroom lights on and off, and completely oblivious to the cries of his classmates, and as if that wasn't enough, the CD player attracted attention too and he kept switching between CD and Radio - Rock FM it transpires does not go down well with 25 three year olds.  Now I know it wasn't funny for the little ones but how does one child manage to run rings round two Nursery Teachers!

Our 'Bob' likes to save the very best for us, his nearest and dearest.  One year he managed to convince my husband that our town must have had an airport and it was located on the nearby golf course and to prove he was right he pulled up a google maps page and presented my husband with his findings.  Mr Autynary wasn’t convinced but ‘Bob’ presented him with the TomTom, and there it was!  By this point both of us are on the verge of believing this great find. And making a few logical searches on the web soon realised that the little tinker had found a WWII map of a nearby American airbase and had overlaid the map on google and had edited the TomTom information.  He’d been rumbled!

The Selfridges run around was another unpredicted moment.  ‘Bob’ has a passion for buttons, wires, knobs, anything really that is remotely twiddly.  The need to fiddle became so overwhelming one Christmas, the sight of all the timer controllers in the kitchen department sent him on overload.  He managed to run around and synchronize all of said items to go off at exactly the same time!!  All we got was an almighty “RUN!”

I thought he was just having a monumental meltdown and had decided to hightail it out of the store.  That was until I heard an almighty ripple of timer bells going off!!

You would think the safety of our own home would prevent his antics.  Ha Ha Ha! No! ‘Bob’ had been badgering for a radio station and Mr Autynary decided to give him a transmitter.  Not such a good idea.  Somehow ‘Bob’ had sussed out how to transmit the dull set tones of Tiffany “I think we’re alone now! And his own version of Neighbourhood News right in the middle of an FM Band Radio 4 afternoon broadcast! I wondered why my neighbors opposite was standing outside their home with their arms crossed and a few disapproving looks!

Household chores don’t escape his comical touch either!  Most recently Bob decided to fill the dishwasher which was odd in itself because he doesn’t engage in chores!  There he was, busy as a bee and we generally thought he was making an effort, so we left him to it!,  Big mistake, HUGE! Somehow the machine didn't get put on that night and  I put it on first thing in the morning.  When I got back home after school drop off  I am greeted by a sea of bubbles seeping out of the sides of the dishwasher! They were absolutely everywhere!.  Every time I opened the door more bubbles appeared. It resembled a Faulty Towers sketch.  It took me hours to clean the mess up.  

When I  picked him up from school and asked if there was something he wanted to share with me, a little smirk crept over his face

“I wasn't me!”

“ It was the plate with bubbles on!”

“What plate with bubbles on ‘Bob’?”

“The one covered in fairy liquid!”

I can only assume that the fragrant green liquid decided to sprout legs and walk itself onto the plate for a bit of a lie down.  You may think at this point that ‘Bob’ isn’t supervised, the comical reality is that he is.  The art of stealth has been well honed!   Even though we chuckle and find it amusing it does highlight a more serious point the invisible vulnerability of children and adults with high functioning Autism!  Never assume the obvious, and never let them fill your dishwasher!