Autism + St. Patrick's Day = St. Autistic's Day, a day inspired by the blessed holiday of beer drinking, getting "jiggy" wit it, and many an attractive male kissing me because I'm Irish (some of you may be thinking, isn't that most nights for you Shalinn? and to that I say, go shamrock yourself - it's none of your business, unless of course you are one of the attractive males to which I referred, in which case I'm not going to be one to complain if you decide to come around more often than on the 17th of March). St. Autistic's Day (which actually occurred for me Wednesday, Mar. 15th) was actually a day of spiritual renewal of sorts, though it probably had more to do with “Lord” Michael Flatley than the Lord Jesus Christ and those such as St. Patrick who trinitized Ireland with his shamrock analogies and the subsequent removal of snakes/Satan. The St. Autistic that has inspired generations to come: an 11-year-old male student that's on the autism spectrum and is currently going through puberty (he's the one that said "uh, your sister, she fine!"). As of late, he's been obsessed with Axe body spray and has been coming to school drenched in its aroma, not to mention bringing it to school everyday so that the minute he loses his stench, he can dip himself in the springs of cologne and become a man once more. This particular day his fellow student was wearing Bod body spray, so along with my freakishly warm room and my personal “Very Sexy for her by Victoria’s Secret” fragrance, the smells were a flyin’ and a mixin’ in that junior high dance where everyone’s overdone it on the perfume/cologne to try and be cool and individualistic but when you’re all together sweatin’ on the dance floor you wish everyone smelled like teen spirit instead of the entire fragrance counter at Dillard’s sort of way. Pa, you taught me that the scent of a woman’s hair can drive a man WILD, but needless to say, I’ll be monitoring the mixture of fragrances before I pick those students up again because that kind of wild is uncalled for.
So, we’re talking about some St. Patrick’s Day vocabulary and the “Axe” student is having a super hard time paying attention. Of course, since his mind is one place and his natural “feelings” regarding the opposite sex of which he is not cognoscente of in the slightest because he’s pretty low cognitively, he’s silently staring at my breasts for the majority of the time, and occasionally adjusting himself. This was not overly alarming as he is not the first student I’ve dealt with that has bodily responses of which he is not aware, but I had no idea what this student’s mind would do once it actually started to almost catch up with his body’s “thoughts.” Out of no where, he picks up the paper we’re working on, sits back in his chair and starts making up a story about me that began with something like this, “Once upon a time, Miss Ginn was a lovely lady. Miss Ginn was sitting in her chair. Miss Ginn was teaching her students……..(the student goes on and on coming up with random things to say about me, and then “concludes” his story with the following)….Miss Ginn has pretty brown, I mean, what color are they? (looks) Miss Ginn has pretty sky blue eyes and she is SO beautiful….and sexy.”
What a gift. Being called sexy by an 11-year-old who barely knows up from down. Very sweet kid, means well, but comes up with the most hilariously inappropriate things that would make my friend Sarah Schultz cringe, blush and say something in her “this is awkward get me the hell out of here voice” like, “Ohhhh. That’s nice.”
