Metal Gear Solid + Metal Nose = Corrosion Of Sanity

I've blogged before about my #2 son Carb Addict who is 17 and severely autistic. He can't really speak properly; can't socialise and has obsessive behaviours - boy does he have obsessive behaviours! Unlike Rain Man (who is probably most people's idea of autism) he has no savant-like talent, unless you count being able to rewind a CD, cassette tape, video or DVD to the exact same place over and over again one. He can also identify unlabelled videos and cassette tapes just by how far the tape has spooled through. A party trick I suppose but not something that's going to get a documentary made about him. He loves music from the 50s, doo wop mainly, which he looks at constantly on YouTube. His current favourite is the first 9 seconds of this song from the Duprees.

It's nothing unusual for him to play just that tiny 9 second snatch up to 80 times in a row. We can kind of switch it off now but it's mesmerising for strangers to see. Before Carb Addict got a place at the unit where he boards during the week we, as a family, had to have lots of interviews, psychological tests (yes, really) AND video cameras set up in the house so that the Clinical Psychologist in charge could see for himself the behaviours Carb Addict displayed. In other words to see whether we were exaggerating his problems in order to get him a boarding place. The CP told us in amazement that he had watched footage of Carb Addict replaying just one word in a cartoon for 25 minutes non-stop. Now that's obsessive behaviour.

It's also by-the-by. In this house we have a PS1 and a PS2. We had a PS1 game called Metal Gear Solid...I think it's some kind of fighting game. Carb Addict started looking at it constantly on YouTube, who knows why, then started asking for it. Within a day he started saying 'Metal Gear Solid' in response to everything. I would say 'Morning, are you okay?' and he would say 'Metal Gear Solid'. I might be in the bath and he would open the door and say 'Metal Gear Solid'. Talking on the phone to Red he would come in the room and I would say to her 'say hello to your brother'. Carb Addict would take the phone and say 'Metal Gear Solid'. You get the picture. I was pretty sure we still had this game and asked Mr Charming where it was. He couldn't find it but he did tell me that his brother doesn't want to play it, only get to a certain place where a character dies and gives a strangled scream, the sound of which appeals to Carb Addict. That I didn't think this was at all odd just shows what I've put up with for the past 17 years.

To cut a long story short Carb Addict found the disc for Metal Gear Solid but sadly he had stood on it at some stage, rendering it useless. Being a tolerant Keshling I bid on a copy of the game on eBay and won it. Hurrah! You might think that knowing a copy of Metal Gear Solid was on its way might appease him a bit but no, it's made it 100% worse. We moved on to counting down how many days it would take to arrive. From just 'Metal Gear Solid' to 'Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday home. Metal Gear Solid!' Repeated over and over and over again. Carb Addict went back to the unit this morning so we have a few days respite from it but the first thing he said to the carer who opened the door to him was 'Metal Gear Solid'.

I've emailed the seller and he's told me that he was going to post the game first thing this morning so I'm just crossing everything that it comes by Friday. Things will get pretty ugly round here if it doesn't...

Talking about things ugly, I am very sad because my beautiful Red tells me she has had her nose pierced. I always tried to play it a bit clever by saying 'yeah, get a tattoo, I don't mind...yeah, get your ears pierced twice, I pierced my own four times' and so on, the idea being that if I thought it was a good idea it would put her and Mr Charming off doing it. And it worked....so far. The only thing I said I didn't EVER want her to do was get her face pierced. I always have this idea that if you have a pierced face then take the stud or whatever out the hole won't close up but will fill with muck and be like a big blackhead. And it really spoils your face! Red has a couple of housemates who are both lovely-looking girls but have two or three facial piercings each...bottom lip, nose, cheek. I think they've damaged themselves and I didn't want her to do the same. She says it's only a small gem stud but I don't understand why she'd want to get one at all. So I'm feeling inordinately down about it. I know she's 21 and the chances are she's not gonna keep it for long but still...she's my baby girl and it's hard for me. I guess I'm just over-reacting dope and it could be a lot worse....borstal spot anyone??

PS....check out this great giveaway on the {A Thrifty Mrs} blog......I wanna win this soooooo bad!!!!