Every once in a
while, one of our friends might actually forget how painful it is to have two
autistic kids at a house party. It's
happened again today. Let's check the
old LeBel-party scoreboard…
Number
of drinks spilled: zero
Number of broken
- glasses: zero
- picture frames: zero
- family heirlooms: zero
- bones: zero
Number of times the
hostess told Mr LeBel to
- stop his children from [fill in blank] ______________: zero
- keep his hands to himself: zero
- keep his "eyes up here, mister": zero
- leave immediately: zero
- never come back: zero
- "get stuffed", "f*ck off" or equivalent: one (lesson learned : insulting a British woman's gardening ability is akin to insulting the cooking ability of a woman from any other culture)
Number
of people staring at the kids until they were either bitch-slapped or told the
kids are autistic: one
Number of actual
slaps delivered:
- LeBel to others: zero
- Others to LeBel: zero
- LeBel to LeBel: zero
- Total slaps: zero
Number of suicide
attempts by:
- cutting: zero
- poison: zero
- drowning: zero
- electrocution: zero
- running into traffic: zero
- jumping off a balcony: one
- How many floors: four, technically, but he would have landed on the downstair's neighbour's balcony one floor down.
Which
proportion of the suicide attempts were successful? 0%
Number of
party-stopping shrieks:
- by LeBel: one
- by others: zero
Number of meals
successfully eaten (max one per person):
- by LeBel adults: two
- by LeBel children: zero
Number
of minutes endured until the children became unbearable and it was time to
leave: 100 minutes
The final score,
therefore, is acceptable. Not bad.
The shriek cost us dearly, but may have saved us the huge penalty score
for a successful suicide attempt. Maybe
next time, we'll prepare the kids with a few social stories and possibly even
manage to cram a hotdog into one of the children... Then again, maybe next time Mrs LeBel will
actually slap a pompous mom with normal kids and a staring problem!