Wrong words, Extra words, Words!

The whole point to the "Conversations" thing is that I'm sharing the humor with you. Sometimes, DG's disability makes him say the goofiest shit. Sometimes he's so funny, we drag it out by asking followup questions ("Rats with little Nike shoes") and sometimes, he just randomly inserts words that make no sense to the situation. That's all part of his disability. And, I only post the conversations and videos that he approves of. I would never make fun of him unless he was in on the joke.

Sometimes his disability makes him say the absolute wrong words- like the time the kids were running around and making noise (they were much younger). He was trying to get them to sit down and watch a movie. So, instead of coming out as a stern: "Sit down and be quiet!", in the same stern-father voice, he declared there was a steering wheel in the coffee table. We didn't have a coffee table at the time.

And sometimes, the disability makes him say extra words that eventually get to the point, when anyone else would have simply gotten to the point. ("You know that guy...")

Years ago, I had a Rottweiler puppy. He was the greatest dog in the world. I read several Rottie books before I brought him home, because I never owned a dog like that before. His name was Kodiak. I still miss him. I shouldn't have worried about training him. That dog was so brilliantly smart that he balanced my checkbook when he was just four months old. (that might not be a true story). So, I trained him with simple, one-word commands. "Sit", "stay", "down", "up"... easy.

Then came the time to train the disabled guy. Sit became: "Sit down". Stay became: "Stay there". "Lay down", "get up"... Luckily, the dog was killer smart and figured it out pretty quickly. But, even with simple one-word commands, the disabled guy's brain just added on extra words.

Today, he's outside fixing a bird feeder. Its a round one, with a plastic tube and a rounded wood-shingled topper on it. Well, it has seen better days. The bottom was almost completely rotted off. So he cut up some scrap wood and made a new round bottom for it. Except now he can't get the top to thread the cable back through. He asked me for help. While were standing there, trying to cram that cable back through the opening that was now half-blocked with rotting wood from the rounded topper, I asked why couldn't he just make a new topper that wasn't all rotted.

With what, he wondered. I threw around suggestions- how about that broken plastic plant pot? Take that bottom thing off, run that cable through, bam, done! No? Then how about you make a roof like on that other birdhouse, run the cable through, bam, done! That other bird feeder is rectangle-shaped and has a straight peaked roof. Can't do it, he says. Its round, that's rectangle. So, I said, you made this (the round bottom), make another one, drill two holes in it for the cable to feed through into the bird feeder frame below and bam, done!

DG: "Huh... that might actually work."

Me: "I know. Tell me I'm smart."

DG: "You're smart."

Me: "Tell me I'm inventive."

DG: "You're so inventive."

Me: "Tell me I'm pretty."

DG: "You're pretty enough." and there was a split second where he paused and then burst out laughing.

Me: "You couldn't say that again if you tried."

DG: "No, I can't!"

At least I didn't have to traipse through a maze of words to figure out what he was saying.