This happened when the COO of a bank we shall keep nameless married the swimsuit model. They had an open bar at their reception. Because of that, nobody under the age of 21 could be in the main building. Usually, this doesn’t cause problems because people don’t bring their kids to wedding receptions that are effectively work things. Since none of us were kids you could leave alone in the house, the people planning the event had to come up with things for the kids to do while their parents listened to coworkers give wedding toasts.
They split the kids into groups. Each group had two interns to chaperone the kids. Our group went ice skating. Our chaperones included Alex, an accounting major with the investment banking group and Verity, a computer science major working as a database developer.
We got a nasty surprise when we arrived at the ice rink. The boys didn't even have to wear helmets while skating, most didn't wear shirts. The girls had to be wrapped up in just about every form of hockey padding under the sun along with a hi-collar life jacket.
As you would expect, none of us saw that coming. They provided gear, but they didn't have enough gear for all the girls to be on the ice at the same time. We could only skate for five minutes at a time before we had to come back and transfer our gear to the next person. The time it took to do the transfer cut into our ice time.
Transferring our protective equipment felt like prepping to put out a wildfire. Abigail jumped off the ice, took off her gloves and helmet, and passed it to Cindy. She then removed her neckguard and life jacket and helped Cindy put it on so she could step on the ice.
Now that Cindy was on the ice, Abigail took off her chest plate and gauntlets and gave them to Cindy. Cindy took the chest plate under their life jacket and fastened the waistband on the life jacket once the chest plate was on.
Next, Abigail took off the shorts and the goalie pads. The tops of the goalie pads went up past Cindy's mid-thigh, and she nearly scratched a hole in the shorts with her skates. It took two of us to fasten the crotch strap on the life jacket once she got the shorts and the goalie pads in place.
Finally, Abigail passed Cindy the gloves. technically, we were not supposed to remove your gloves until the end, but it’s easier to transfer if you take your gloves off.
This whole process took four minutes and 15 seconds. Cindy took one look at herself and said, “Jesus Christ, I feel like a tick about to pop!”
“OK, you’re done,” Abigail said.
Cindy looked at Abigail from behind the face cage of the helmet. “Yeah, but I can’t put my arms down!” she whined.
Abigail pushed Cindy’s arms down and they sprang right back up. She looked around and said, “Well, put your arms down when you get on the ice.”
Cindy nodded and waddled away.
“Nice change-up, Abigail,” I said as I slowly clapped
Abigail rolled her eyes and sulked, “Louise, do not get me started on that life jacket, it will not go around that breastplate.” She sat down on the bench in a way that looked like somebody threw her there. “No kidding, this is not what I had in mind.”
I nodded and chuckled. “By my calculations, Cindy’s going to have 45 seconds of ice time,” I commented, pointing to my watch, “She should make the most of it.”
Ellie overheard our chatter, turned around, and said, “You’ve been in a mood all day, Louise.”
“Well, not all the time,” I said, “this only started when we got out here.”
When I said that, I referred to getting caught off guard by a rule that the girls had to have hockey gear in a life jacket to skate. Ellie thought I meant I was afraid of skating because I had never been before. “So, have you been skating before?” she asked in a sickly sweet tone that tried to be sympathetic but just failed.
“Yes, but never with this much gear,” I said. I shook my head and grimaced, “It’s putting me off, to be honest.”
“OK,” Ellie asked, “what do you wear for skating?”
“You mean other than my skates and my clothes?” I shrugged my shoulders, “Just some gloves.”
Ellie looked at me like I had horseshoe crabs coming out of my nose. “That’s it?” she gasped, “No helmet?”
“No, don’t really need one,” I answered. My background is in figure skating and the first thing they teach you is how to fall so that you don’t hit your head. I fully respect that helmets can prevent catastrophic skull fractures, but learning how to fall safely prevents you from hitting your head in the first place. I tried to put this into words that Ellie would understand, but all I could get out was, “I already know how to fall”
Ellie didn’t appreciate this, but I didn’t expect her to get so upset. “You’re kidding me, right?” she said with one of those laughs it’s not a genuine laugh but you’re just using it to mask your discomfort, “Your ego is so inflated that you can barely fit through the door."
"I know,” I responded. I meant this as I know you're upset, but Ellie took it to mean I know, it's hard being this great.
My ego had nothing to do with it. Everyone else seemed oblivious to what we were promised not matching what was delivered except me.
Our conversation attracted the attention of one of the chaperones. Alex wandered over to us and said, “Is there a problem here, ladies?”
“Well, it's not really a problem per se,” I began. “I was just talking about how this does not meet my expectations, and…”
Ellie stood up abruptly. “Louise ice skates with no helmet because she thinks she's better than us!” she interrupted in a panicky tone. I now knew exactly what Grace and Jacinda were talking about when they said she looked like Veruca Salt.
Alex walked over to me and sat down. “OK, Listen to me,” she began, “I know you might think all that and a slice of pie, but until you have witnessed the horror that goes on in a trauma ward in a hospital ER, don't speak.” She closed her eyes and looked away towards the end of the sentence. she started to panic just as much as Ellie did and smacked the back of her right hand against her left hand if she spoke. “You aren't just hurting yourself here, you are making others who love you fear for your life!”
Alex got very stern and corporate with me. “We are not talking about pie, Louise,” she said.
“Then why did you bring it up?”
Alex got mad, left, and went to the viewing gallery to say something to Verity. “what do you think they’re talking about?” I mused out loud.
Jacinda heard what I said and responded, “It's probably a bluff. I don’t think they’re saying much of anything.”
I watched Alex and Verity gesticulate as they talked. “They’re moving their hands a lot.”
“I can see that,” Jacinda replied. She shrugged. “For what it’s worth, I’m like you. I don’t skate with a helmet, either.”
“Because you’re vain?” Ellie snipped.
Jacinda rolled her eyes at Ellie. She turned to me and said, “Honestly, what’s more important is knowing how to fall safely. I’m surprised they don’t teach kids that.”
“That’s how I learned, but I learned from someone who had trained as a figure skater,” I said excitedly. Out of everyone there, I finally met someone who actually understood.
Alex came back with Verity. “Hey, Louise,” she asked.
I slammed my hands down on my thighs. “Is this about what I think it is?” I said.
“Yes,” Verity said, “Alex told me everything.”
I stood up and got ready to explain myself. “They should’ve told us ahead of time,” I said.
Verity shook her head. “Well, you should know better,” she said. She brought her hands together gently and looked down at me, even though I’m about four inches taller than her. “A helmet is the bare minimum,” she said, “ and what do you think of somebody who does the bare minimum?”
“Well,” I began, “none of the girls expected to have to wear full hockey gear and a life jacket on the ice.” I did my best to be diplomatic, something that got harder as the dialogue became progressively stupider. “Quite frankly, that rule should apply to everybody and, as I’ve said before, you should’ve told us this ahead of time.”
Verity gestured for me to sit down. “I want you to slow down and think about how you sound,” she said, “Does it come off as, well, a bit Karen-ish?”
Now, the smart thing to say next would be that you aren’t frustrated by the protective gear in and of itself, just the double standards, lack of communication, and unexpected reactions to expressing your frustration with the previous items surrounding it. Had I been able to put this in words, it would’ve been a lot smarter than what I did say, which was, “Why do you have to wear a life jacket while skating because it’s a flooded ice surface and not a frozen pond?”
Verity rolled her eyes. She probably thought I was stupid. “because ice is frozen water,” she said in total disbelief that someone could make it to age 16 and not know that, “if you fall through the ice, you hit the water and drown.” She condescendingly nodded her head. “People can fall through ice and drown, and life jackets stop you from drowning.”
I blinked. “I get that, but this is not the same”
“how can it not be the same?” Verity said incredulously, “Drowning is drowning!”
“Unlike an ice layer on a natural body of water, there’s nowhere for you to go if the ice cracks except for maybe the padding that’s underneath the ice sheet. It’s pretty much a frozen puddle.” I couldn’t believe I had to say this to an adult.
“But you can drown in a puddle!” she said defensively, “Or are you too stupid to understand that, too?”
“Not if it’s frozen,” I said without missing a beat. I burst out laughing. How could somebody think you could fall through a flooded ice sheet when there was no body of water underneath it. “the fact that you can’t seem to grasp but there is no risk of drowning on a man-made rink makes you closer to stupid than me”
Verity’s patience wore thin. She walked me to the door. “Go,” she scolded, “Now.”
I took off my skates, packed them up, put my shoes back on, and walked away. As I left, I heard Jacinda say, “She’s right, you know.
Verity pointed at the door. “You need to leave, too, Jacinda,” she barked, “Don’t encourage Louise, here.”
I don’t believe for a minute that I missed anything spectacular. As I left, I noticed that the boys decided to play some game where they knocked over the girls. The girls couldn’t get up when the boys knocked them over. Anyone who fell over had to wait for somebody to help them up, but they seemed to take their sweet time. Somehow, I can see this game making the top of the list of reasons that somebody's relationship ended.
Jacinda caught up to me as I left. “Louise, I’m going to ask you something and I don’t want you to freak out”
“Normally, I’d say please don’t, but have at. I’m kind of curious now”
Jacinda took a deep breath and asked, “Was everything that happened back there related to your autism?”
It looks an awful lot like my autism caused this fiasco, but it didn’t. This isn’t me struggling to cope with intricate social rules, nor is it about not foreseeing how things they do upset people. It’s not related to difficulty executing tasks due to poor motor coordination. It’s not even an issue of taking things too literally.
“Jacinda, let me answer that question with another question,” I began, “Did they tell the girls we need to bring a life jacket and hockey padding to skate ahead of time?”
“No,” Jacinda scoffed, “and it should really be the other way around.”
I laughed because I knew exactly what Jacinda meant. if you put those boys in a padded cell they’ll still find a way to hurt themselves. “Yeah,” I chortled, “they’re stupid.”
“So, what you’re telling me is that this is not related to autism?” Jacinda asked
“Hell no!” I exclaimed, “The problem is that we were lied to!”
Jacinda tipped her head to one side, “Of course, if they told us the truth, we would say that they were insane and we wouldn’t show up, because none of it makes any sense.”
Grace came power-walking in out of nowhere. “hey guys, we’ve got a problem,”
Jacinda’s eyebrows did their best impressions of Volkswagens trying to park. “And that is?”
Grace gestured to the clamp on the wheel on the bug-green luxury car parked at a 60-degree angle. “They’ve impounded my Mercedes.”
