I was pissed off because all the accessible parking spaces were occupied at Trader Joe’s. Whenever all the accessible spots are taken like that, I always suspect that the people clogging them up aren’t entitled to be there because they lack the proper cripple credentials, such as a license plate with the wheelchair stick figure guy on it.
Anyway, that’s why I was
pissed off. We had to park on the lower level, which has no accessible parking
space. We made do with a regular space. I felt like a commoner. But as I
entered the store a guy wearing a Trader Joe’s work shirt and nametag bellowed
out, “Welcome to Trader Joe’s!”
This must be the autistic
guy I’ve heard so much about, I said to myself. He’s kind of a neighborhood
celebrity because he was written up in a local publication because he’s autistic
and he works at Trader Joe’s. Our societal opinion of crippledness has advanced
to the point where possessing either of those characteristics unto themselves
doesn’t make one particularly newsworthy, but when you put together the two,
that’s a human-interest feature just dying to be written.
How did I know he was the
legendary autistic guy? I mean, autistic people
aren’t immediately obvious. You can see a wheelchair cripple coming from
a mile away. And blind people are a dead
giveaway with their white canes and dogs. But people with autism aren’t as easy to peg.
I’m told that some of them are wild eyed and snort a lot. (Or is that Tourette’s
people? Or maybe that’s schizophrenics. I get mixed up.) But this guy didn’t
display any of that. And he certainly wasn’t wearing a button that said HELLO
I’M AUTISTIC.
No, the reason I figured
he must be autistic was because he was
so enthused about working at Trader Joe’s.
I know that’s screwed up of me to assume that if a person is excited to
be working at a place like Trader Joe’s they must be autistic. But
really, the only other people that are really enthused to be working at
corporate places like Trader Joe’s or
Burger King are people in commercials.
But actually, why is being
enthused about what you’re doing such a bad thing? Isn’t that what we all want,
to be happy and content as much as possible? I could stand to give myself a
break in that regard. I’m always finding myself trying hard to resist enjoying
simple things, I guess because I have this dumb idea that enjoying simple things means I ‘m a
simple person. I don’t know what prize that attitude will win me in the end.
The autistic guy (alleged)
hustled ahead of me and pushed the elevator button. The door opened and he
welcomed me in with a swoop of his arm. As we rode up in the elevator, I was
star struck to be in his presence, like he was Brad Pitt or something.
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C'mon, Trader Joe's sells real food, etc. Burger King doesn't.
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