(My mom has been going to the same small-town butcher shop for over twenty years. This allows her to make the occasional… interesting order.)

Mom: “Hi. I’d like to order a turkey for roasting and four extra full turkey legs. And can you make sure that’s two left legs and two right legs?”

Employee: “Um, okay, we can do that. But only if you promise to tell us why!”

Mom: “I will when I come in to pick them up, I promise!”

(A couple days later, her order is in and she goes to pick it up.)

Employee: “So, about that explanation…”

Mom: “We’re having a Star Trek-themed dinner party. We’re going to skewer the extra legs onto each side of the turkey and tell our guests it’s an extraterrestrial ‘turkey beetle.'”

Employee: “That is probably the best thing I have ever heard.”

(Somewhere in one of my parents’ old photo albums is a picture of them in Starfleet uniforms, proudly showing off their assembled and roasted “turkey beetle”!)

(I volunteer at my local library from middle school until I leave the area for college, and during that time I am the youngest staff member by about forty years. Given my age and familiarity with the library, the other staff members frequently come to me for opinions on book-related things for younger library patrons. This particular occasion, however, is one I may never be able to forget.)

Head Librarian: “Hey, [My Name], you’re pretty familiar with book trends for teens, right?”

Me: “Yeah, I keep track. I like to pay attention to what the other kids at school are reading, and I check what’s selling well online.”

Head Librarian: “Right. Do you think you could come up with a list of things we could do to get a bigger teen presence in the library? Different things we could have in stock that they would consider worth it?”

Me: “Sure. Not a problem.”

(I spend a significant chunk of my summer vacation on this project, listing out the most popular things I know kids at the local high school like, as well as researching what’s growing in popularity. Then I take it back to the head librarian.)

Me: “There are three main problem areas in our inventory. First, there aren’t any comic books, manga, or graphic novels. They’re very popular, and that popularity is only growing. I highly recommend getting some collections in both junior fiction and young adult fiction, because that alone is going to be a great way to start. Second, we have a DVD collection, but it’s rather sparse and outdated, and it contains almost no television. It would be a smart investment to commit to a wider collection of DVDs, because they’ll bring teens in the door, and from there the rest of the library will be used. Third, new adult fiction. I know it’s an iffy genre, but making a separate section just for books geared a bit older than the standard young adult will make that whole section a lot more user-friendly for the older teens who want to read more mature books without jumping straight to adult fiction.”

(She’s just staring at me, so I press on, handing her a few stapled-together sheets of paper.)

Me: “I put together lists of the most recommended comics, graphic novels, and manga, as well as some recommendations for DVDs and new adult fiction.”

Head Librarian: “Hm… I was just thinking you’d tell me everything was fine. Or that we should make more hot chocolate.”

Me: “I mean, that’s fine, but if you want me to tell you what teens are looking for, that’s it.”

Head Librarian: *pause* “Hm… I’m just not sure I believe that’s what’ll work.”

(She then walked away without a thank-you, and nothing I recommended happened. Years later, I was invited to a meeting at the library where an auditor was checking everything over and then giving a recommendation. I showed up, and what do you know. The very first thing he recommended? Manga and graphic novels.)

Me: “[My Department], this is [My Name]; may I help you?”

Caller: “I’m glad you speak American.”

Me: *to myself* “I take it you were an American major in college?”

(In eighth grade, my class decides to pull an April Fool’s Day prank. I go to a small private school that is pre-K through eighth grade, and our class only has about twenty of us. We also have a bit of a reputation as troublemakers. Most of us arrange somehow to be at school early on the morning of April 1st. If you arrive at school before eight, you are supposed to check yourself into the daycare facility, but they don’t really care if the older kids do or not, plus kids rarely arrive early, anyway. All the teachers hang out in the office and teacher’s lounge at this time of the morning so the whole school is basically empty. We split into pairs and go through every classroom, the library, the music room, the computer lab, etc., and steal every single clock. We meet in the cafeteria where we hide them all in a storage closet behind some chairs. By the time we are done, other students have begun to arrive, and we act as though everything is normal. Early in the day, our teacher has a bemused look when she looks to see the time and the clock is missing. Shortly after, another teacher wanders in, looking at where the clock should be, before returning to her room, but nothing is said about the missing clocks. I assume a search is conducted at some point in the day once they realize all the clocks are gone. A half-hour before school lets out, our teacher is in the middle of giving a lesson when we hear the secretary’s voice over the speaker.)

Secretary: “Will the students who took the clocks please return them? If all the clocks are back in place by the time school lets out, there will be no punishments.”

Our Teacher: “Just go.”

(She gave up on her lesson and went to sit at her desk. Half the class stood up and walked out of the room. We did return all the clocks by the end of the day and no one was angry. The principal even chuckled about it.)

I was diagnosed with Asperger’s when I was fourteen, and I’ve never really seen anything bad about it. I like to make jokes about having it sometimes, too.

Whenever I go to the doctor, I ask if I need any vaccines or shots at the time, and I distinctly remember one of my doctors making a remark on how I’m one of the only people who ask voluntarily. I was fifteen at the time and this doctor works usually with younger patients.

I calmly looked her in the eye and smiled brightly before saying, “I already have autism; what’s the worst that can happen?”

It wasn’t as funny as I thought it was when she assumed I actually thought that vaccines caused autism and started lecturing me.