A woman came into my work a little while ago loudly complaining about her (perfectly well-behaved) son, saying how he was ten years old and didn’t know how to listen, and I nodded along like “yeah I totally remember being that age”, and she looks at me and goes, “no, seriously, he’s Autistic,” and I spread my arms and go, “Hey, same! Twinsies!”
And this woman’s eyes. My God, it was beautiful. She goes, “Really? And they let you WORK here?”
And then she turns back to her kid to nag at him and over her shoulder little dude and and I make what I can only describe as the purest form of eye contact I have ever experienced in my life
She snapped at him to stop running around and hold still so I froze in place like a terrified statue and he copied me and we both grinned and he’s my favourite customer now
One experience that has not changed my whole life is the joyous vindication that comes from an adult communicating to a kid that yeah, you’re not stupid, this other adult just needs to untwist their pants
this post just made a full trip back to my dash and reading it over again two years later I feel the need to add that when this happened I was working as uniformed security personnel
and I really really hope that the memory of “person in position of authority thinks that you’re doing great and your mom is wrong about you” sticks in their head for when they need it most