Another Strange Grocery Store Experience

[Spinning Compass]

Grabbing toddlers--you got it! You would not believe what the earring-remover did yesterday! I was wearing a sweatshirt with a fuzzy design and all of a sudden her hand darted out and landed hard on my chest! "I just wanted to feel it," she said. EXCUUUSE ME?

Anyway, I told her very politely that you do not do things like that to someone whom you know has Aspergers. I said that many of us have issues being touched, that it comes across as being threatening and that we may react accordingly. I did not add that some of us who have been sexually abused also have issues with that kind of thing as well. I told her she should ask first. Hopefully it will sink in. If not, I may (reluctantly) have to take it to the next level, church or no church.

 

[Soup]

@ SpinningCompass: She's a real humdinger. A walking lexicon of rude behaviours! Good thing you weren't wearing velvet pants: who knows where her hands would've wandered off to then! I like the way you spoke up for yourself this time & made your boundaries clear. Now, she has no excuse. Hopefully that'll be the last of her touchy-feely invasive conduct.

@ButterflyLady: I wonder which alternative line this person expected you to use? Did she expect you to just steal the stuff & make a break for the door?

@ Holly: You're so right about this being toddler behaviour. Didn't these people go to Kindergarten?!? They missed the lessons about waiting their turn, keeping their hands to themselves, not bullying & tattle-taleing...I expect my PUG to have better manners than these people!

 

[imagesbyholly]

Maybe the earring/sweater grabber is OCD and is obsessed with feeling things. I know that some autistic people love to feel everything.

 

[Butterfly_Lady]

@ButterflyLady: I wonder which alternative line this person expected you to use? Did she expect you to just steal the stuff & make a break for the door?

exactly!! i mean even if i did have more items then 10 or whatever. If I had been standing there for a lot longer then they were, I am not about to give up my spot to them just because they have less items and us being in the only line that is open.

 

[Biblio-Love]

Forget neurotypical - more like typical frustrated ***** behaviour. I hate when people I don't know touch me. It sounds like she was having a bad day, and took it out on you. BTW, I love shiny things! Is that an autistic thing? Is that what you meant by Autie?

 

[Soup]

Yep! An other-worldly attraction to shiny sparkly things is one of the traits parents notice about their young kids who later get diagnosed as Auties. They'll stare at a light or a sparkly figurine & become lost in the fascination. Happens to me easily! When I'm driving after dark in winter, I can easily become trapped in a Christmas light display & just freeze on the spot! It's something I really have to watch out for. Before leaving the house, I remind myself NOT to let this happen.

 

[Biblio-Love]

That sounds very much like me! I collect shiny things! although would never grab someone's hand to look at a ring. But I do stare at jewelry. You should keep that big diamond on. Never know when you'll have to pop someone in the face. Diamonds make good weapons.

 

[Soup]

HAHA! I never thought of that, BiblioLove! I could knock someone out cold with it. Might come in handy!

 

[Spinning Compass]

Holly--Unfortunately she is as Neurotypical as they come. Very, very bubbly and very, very social. Just has no sense of boundaries, or at least not with me. I don't see her doing the same thing with others so I am wondering if I am being singled out because of the AS. If so, that is doubly annoying. And, yes, it undermines everything that this church claims to stand for.

 

[Soup]

@ Compass: That's a disturbing thought. Then again some people have an almost morbid curiosity about others who are different in some way. Part of them WANTS to see what will happen if...(the person has an allergic reaction, a seizure, goes into Diabetic shock or has a melt-down). They'd probably never admit to having these thoughts, but watch out for her. If she's one of those sorts, she'll find another opportunity to upset you in some manner.

 

[Mr Faramoose]

she sounds like she's just spoiling for an argument because her own life is so boring and unfullfilling that she needs to bother someone daily to make herself feel good. If you see her again, I recommend you go up to her and start talking randomly about peaches and how lovely whales are to freak her out. Then maybe she'll stop bothering strangers so much.

 

[Mr Faramoose]

I took no offence whatsoever at what you said & I acknowledge that my blank stare (esp if something unexpected has occurred) can appear disturbing. The thing is, I'm so short & small (I'm 5'1" & slim) that even if I were to bare my teeth & growl like a dog I'd look more like a floppy eared puppy playing with a toy than anyone truly threatening (or like some poor sick woman).

I WAS tempted to squash a grapefruit on her head (she was tall: I'd have needed a ladder) or share one of a dozen eggs with her, I admit. What gets me is the way so many people think that they are somehow cops or working with store security.

If you had a cucumber to hand you could have used it to push her away like with the pointy end, and as you do it, literally, bark or growl like a dog, I bet she'd be so terrified of you that she'd think twice about informing people of their grocery crimes again.

 

[Soup]

@ Mr.Faramoose: I had to laugh at your pre-emptive Aspie ambush idea you suggested to SpinningCompass. It would be hilarious to watch her reaction at being cornered by an Aspie obsessed with peaches (or some other thing like parachutes). She'd think twice before ever poking & prodding an Aspie ever again!

 

[Mr Faramoose]

or poking anyone, presumably. But youd be hard pressed to tell who was armed with the most deadly form of fruit unless you stared into everybody's basket, in which case you'd get very odd looks yourself. And in the left corner of the store, armed with a chicken breast and a wound up copy of the daily telegraph, it's doris, the 67 year old landlady from doncaster. And in the right corner, at a hefty 16 stone, armed with a smart price microwave and a twin pack of cheeseburgers, it's ben the angry bailiff. We hear doris once inappropriately touched ben when she mistook his grocery count, so this fight should be interesting. GLADIATORS,READY!

 

[tree]

Scene....Local grocery store
I was dressed in snow pants and a hoodie.

Complete stranger: "I haven't done my Christmas charity yet. I want to pay for your groceries."

Me: "No, thank you."


Later that same day, in the public library...

Me: "She started talking to me from behind my back, very chipper as if she knew me. I wasn't sure who it was. Then when I turned around & looked at here, she was no one I had ever seen before. Apparently she took me for a homeless person. She offered to pay for my groceries."

Librarian: "Did you let her?"

Me: "No."

Librarian: laughing, "Oh, you should have. I would have."

 

[Ravkrat]

this is why I limit myself to only two or three things per trip..

 

[Jambo_nick]

Some people are just tools. Happens everywhere. Well done for telling her to bolt! Best way to deal with the society police. I tend to get cheeky with this type of person lol.

 

[Judge]

This is an older thread but I thought Soup I would add tips for grocery shopping. Not matter how much stuff I buy I keep either a hand-held basket or one of the small shopping carts between myself and the person in line behind me.

Here they tend to get so close to people in line that you can feel them breathing on you. There's no sense of personal space. So I do that, to keep people from getting too close.

On rare occasion I've simply turned back and told the person behind me that no matter how much they invade my personal space, it won't likely make the checker any faster.