An Idiom is Born

People with autism often have difficulty with idioms.

 

Although he has come a long way, David's language has not developed to the point where I had even given a thought to David's interpretation of idioms.

 

Until today, when I had a few familiar idioms pop into my mind after I rounded the corner into the kitchen and saw David.

 

Stop and smell the roses.

A watched pot never boils.

 

One of the traits about David that I absolutely love is that he notices things that other people do not.  He truly enjoys what he wants to enjoy, in his own way, and really does not care what anyone else has to say about it.  (Or, that we might be running late for an appointment, but that is another story.)

 

And, something that I may not notice can hold David's attention for what would seem to me to be a mind numbingly long time.

 

Over the course of several days.

 

That could actually stretch into weeks.

 

Ahem.  Anyway, I walked into the kitchen and David had decided to stop and smell the roses, so to speak.  He had pulled over an extremely heavy, Yugoslavian-made kitchen chair (yes, from when there was still a Yugoslavia, which tells you how old it is), then apparently went to the family room to move in an ottoman and grab a blanket, all to cozy up in comfort so that he could watch the coffee perk.

 

Let me repeat it.  He wanted to watch THE COFFEE PERK--the WHOLE pot.

 

And I will never know if he liked seeing the coffee drip, drip, drip, slowly at first, until a pool of fresh coffee started to collect in the pot.  Or, if he was intrigued by the foamy bubbles that gather around the edges of the glass carafe.  Or, if he simply finds it amusing to move as much extra furniture as possible into my kitchen work triangle in order to hear me mutter under my breath as I try to unload the dishwasher and begin breakfast.  I do a great deal of muttering under my breath.

 

If David even understood the two idioms that had immediately popped into my head, he certainly would not have found them appropriate.

 

Because, for David, the more appropriate and newly created idiom would be:

 

Stop, but don't smell the roses because it is infinitely more enjoyable to watch the coffee perk into the pot, but please do not expect it to boil, watched pot or not, because coffee in a coffeemaker never does reach a boiling temperature.

 

Catchy, isn't it?