I read a news clipping from some small town’s Police Blotter that stated that a woman had come home from work to find that someone had broken into her home, made and baked a blueberry pie, eaten once slice, and then left.

The woman then called the cops, of course. After all, that’s what you are supposed to do when someone broke into your house. It’s your civic duty.

But I also think she just desperately needed to tell someone about it. I mean, it’s just too weird. So why not kill two birds with one stone and tell the cops?

I love this story. It’s so marvelously picayune. And I have so many questions. Like :

1. Who does that? Who breaks into a stranger’s house just to bake a pie and eat one slice? Someone who really, really wanted some pie, I guess. I mean, I know some people have extremely strong feelings about pie – not me, I’ve always been a cake man – but most people would not commit larceny to get some.
2. Did they have the recipe on them? Because that would indicate intent. Or did they have the recipe memorized? If so, you have to admit, that’s pretty impressive. I’ve always been amazed by the people who can bake without a recipe. I wouldn’t make tea biscuits without a recipe and I have made those a dozen times, easy.
3. Is there an alternate theory of the events? Well yeah. One. It’s just barely possible that this woman bakes the pie and at a slice herself then somehow managed to completely forget she had done so. I’ve done similar things myself. But the crime based theory is still the most likely.
4. Is this even a crime? I mean, obviously, it’s a crime in the strictly legal sense to break into someone house and mess with their stuff. But morally speaking, is it a crime? I mean, technically, she’s up most of a pie. Is it still a crime if you leave the victim better off than before?
5. What was that thought process like? Like, how does one decide on this course of action? “I sure could go for a slice of pie right now. But I’m a homeless person with no money. What to do,what to do. Oh hey, I know. I will break into that friendly looking house and bake one myself. Good thing I have my Hobo’s Home Cookbook on me. And I mean hey, what’s the worst that could happen to me? They catch me and throw me in jail. You know what they have in jail? Pie. ”

Then again, if my amnesia theory is correct, I can just imagine that poor women suddenly remembering making the pie while in the middle of phoning the crime into the police and then being way too ashamed to admit it.

That kind of thing has happened to me as well. Being absentminded makes life into a never ending stream of improbable humiliations and tricks your mind plays on you.

If only I could forget those!

More after the break.

---

The Wrong Reaction, Part II

I had other ideas for what I was going to talk about in this segment, but this one needs doing, so I am doing it.

Let’s revisit the subject of my disappointing and confusing people by not giving them the reactions they want or expect, shall we?

Because that was very hard to write about, and what I am about to say about it is even harder, so it should do me a fair bit of good.

I felt a large section of my deep shame move last time I talked about this and I am eager to keep things moving in that direction.

To wit : If people are not getting the right reactions from me, they will stop trying to reach me. That, we covered before.

But what if those people are my family?: What if one of those people is…. my mother?

What if my ineffable strangeness interfered with my maternal bond?

See, I read in an article about how autistic babies don’t give their mothers the right feedback in terms of smiles, laughter, or even a warm look of recognition. Healthy kids reward their caretakers with these warm gestures, but autistic babies do not.

And it’s these rewards that reinforce the child’s bond with the caretaker. And it’s self-sustaining when it’s working. A mother who gets warm smiles from her baby will work harder to keep the baby happy and healthy to get more of those awards. A baby who is well looked after and cared about will naturally produce said rewards.

But if the infant is autistic, the right behaviour is not rewarded, and the caretaker will eventually stop trying to reach this seemingly unreachable child.

This, in turn, means that the autistic child gets even less of the social connect that they need to get out of their autistic isolation, and becomes even more withdrawn.

Now like I have said, I do not consider myself autistic, or even Asperger’s. But I do wonder if the same sort of vicious cycle might apply to me. I definitely feel like at some point, my mother gave up on me, and now I have to wonder how much that had to do with me and my issues.

I don’t doubt that my mother loves me with all her heart.

But I was, in many ways, an unreachable child, eerily self-possessed, independent, and articulate, and I have to wonder how many people just gave up trying to reach me after getting no real response for so long.

Including my mother, and the rest of my family.

And the thing is, I seem like I am present, and people can definitely talk to me and see me and get intelligent replies to what they say. I make for a very convincing and lifelike hologram of a person.

But I am, in many ways, emotionally absent. I don’t give the right emotional responses and that opens up a strange gulf between me and others that is all the more confusing for how lifelike I seem.

In some ways, I would be better off acting like a weird alien. That way, I would clearly communicate to people what they can expect of me and give them some kind of heads up on how best to deal with me.

As it is now, I am a walking talking advertisement for the Uncanny Valley.

And if I am to finally shed this shell of mine, I am going to need to figure out how to deal with this problem.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.