Eating Out

We went to town yesterday afternoon because my son had to have his yearly eye test. He is on a very high prescription for his glasses and needs a new pair every year. He loves having his eyes tested and marvelled at all the gadgets in the optician room. His favourite was the "machine that turns people into cybermen" as pictured below.

The optician had to reassure him that he wasn't going to be assimilated before he put his chin in the machine!

After the eye test it was getting quite late and the kids were hungry, so I decided to take them to a restaurant. My son is a picky eater, so finding something on the menu that he would eat was hard, but in the end he settled for a hot-dog and chips.

Unfortunately, we went in at the same time as a group celebrating a birthday. They were sitting up the corner making a lot of noise, blowing on these squawky little trumpets. This freaked my son out.

"SHUT UP!!!" he screamed to them. "STOP BEING NOISY!!!!"

I don't think they heard him.

He then started screaming and covering his hands over his ears. Autistic kids are especially sensitive to stimuli and loud noises really scare him. He couldn't bear it and was getting increasingly stressed and anxious.

In the end, I had to call a waitress over and ask for her help. She went and got the manager. Oo-er!

The manager was great. I explained the situation and she went over to the offending table to have a chat. Then it went quiet.

I felt like a bit of a party pooper, but they were VERY noisy. They were not being very considerate to anyone else in the restaurant.

So I guess I probably ruined some kid's birthday, but hey, nowadays it is rare for a week to go by without us raining on someones parade.