Top 10 Modern Conveniences That Make Living with Autism Easier

I’m really not good at much of anything. If I were 18 and applying to colleges, my list of talents would have to read something like this… “I excel at watching reality television, looking up things on Amazon.com, and feeding my insane need for instant knowledge by being Wikipedia’s #1 looker-upper.”

That’s kind of sad, isn’t it? But my biggest talent is in the ability to throw myself one heck of a pity party. I mean, I really do need my own show on TLC to show you all how it’s done. It’s complete with sobbing and raccoon eyes and copious amounts of nasty snot and Kleenex with Slowdive on the stereo, and anything within my reach that even remotely looks like chocolate.

I once gnawed away at a bar of almond bark during a self-imposed pity party. And we know there’s not a lick of cocoa to be found in the cheap stuff. But if got me through.

But during one of my one or two or six pity parties that I’ve thrown in the last 4, 3, 2 weeks, I had an epiphany. It was like the voice of God… or maybe it was my mother…. slapped me up the back of my head and said…

“Snap out of it! Be glad you’re not a mother of a child with autism back in the 70’s! You’ve got it made!”

And it was, like, I don’t know… a rare moment of clarity. I mean, I do think that moms of kids with autism have it hard. I do! We do! But I should be really grateful for all the modern technology and conveniences that have made it so much easier for me to be able to go about our day to day life. I mean, I can’t imagine what it would’ve have been like in the 70’s and 80’s when I was a kid. Or even today in a third world country.

So, I present to you the Top 10 list of modern day conveniences that have made my life easy. It’s not a funny list or anything….sorry Letterman… but something I can look at when I start to reach for the almond bark tomorrow… uh, I mean next month… And, honestly, I have the feeling that any mother, with or without a child with autism, would agree.

1. Grocery Carts in the Parking Lot - I distinctly remember a time when all grocery carts were inside the store and you had to actually load your groceries in the car and risk letting your popsicles melt in 130 degree Texas heat while leaving your children in the car to suffocate kill each other wait quietly so you could run back into the store to return the grocery cart. Or you could just be the jerk who left it in the parking lot and then have it roll into the car next to you. Whatever floats your boat.

But nowadays? Oh my gosh. I AM the women who will park all the way at the back of the parking lot in order to park directly next to a cart kiosk. Or whatever you call them. And I AM the women who will curse under her breath when the teenagers who pick up the carts actually do their job and there are no carts to be found anywhere. And I WILL drive around and around until I can find one that has a cart in it. Because being able to just pull the cart to the side of the minivan and pop Noah in the back of it has made my life so much easier. No more having Noah fall down in the parking lot like a ton of bricks because he doesn’t want to walk.

Am I lazy? You betcha.

2. The Drive-Thru at CVS - I remember when we first moved here and the CVS was in the next town over, so I had to go into Walmart to pick up our prescriptions. Have you ever had to wait in line at the pharmacy inside Walmart? I honestly think that they have a laminated sign behind the counter that only the pharmacists and their techs can see that says

“Screw customer service! Stall! Make customer wait a minimum of 45 minutes. Customer will be forced to browse through store and spend money on items they don’t need. And if the customer has a child with autism, make them wait 1 hour. She will be forced to buy potato chips, hot wheels, preschool toys, and questionable food from our deli in order to keep the child from having a monumental meltdown.”

It’s a conspiracy, I tell ya!

Anyway, eventually the Gates of Heaven opened and God said, “Let there be a CVS across the street!” And it was done. And my life went from 2 on the suck-o-meter to a 6 overnight. I just pull up to the window, give them my name, and they hand over the prescription and a couple of lollipops. Bliss.

3. Debit Cards at the Oil Changing Place - there are a myriad of reasons why I love debit cards. But the main reason is because the rough old man at the Oil Changing place takes them. I don’t even have to get out of my car. Back in the day, I remember my brother and I having to get out of the car and wait in a stinky, cramped waiting area that spelled of oil and sweat while waiting for the oil in my mom’s car to be changed. There was usually a rusty old water fountain and a gumball machine only filled with peanuts. Peanuts! Say what??

Anyway, I don’t know what’s happened in the field of car oil changing, but it used to take forever and now old Mr D and his crew can change it in 10 minutes flat. And then he takes my debit card, swipes it up front, brings it back to me along with a portable “enter your 4 digit code” thingy and we’re done. We never have to even get out of the car.

4. USPS.com – okay, there are a thousand ways that the internet has made life easier and this is one of them. Have you ever had to wait in line at the post office to send off a package? With a child? A child who detests the post office? A child who thinks that the post office is a place where it is acceptable to have meltdowns? A place that happens to have the longest lines in post office history and a lady who works there that is mean? MEAN!

I get panic attacks just thinking about having to go into the post office. It is always a major ordeal. And it’s especially hard if you try to sell stuff on Ebay to raise a little money and then have to wait in line for 30 minutes just to mail a small package to Poughkeepsie. But with USPS.com, I can print off and pay for a shipping label and schedule a package pickup all online. And Noah never has to encounter Mean Post Office Lady ever again.

It’s the best invention ever.

*I am not an affiliate of USPS.com. I have not been compensated in anyway. All opinions of USPS.com and the beyotch who works at our local post office are mine and mine alone.

5. Subscribe & Save and Amazon Mom on Amazon.com – if for some insane reason I’m ever given a Mom of the Year award, I am seriously going to thank Amazon.com in my acceptance speech. I’ll touch on the many ways "I heart me some Amazon" later on in this countdown, but for right now, Amazon Mom and the Subscribe & Save feature have saved us TONS of money... and sanity.

Noah wears Seventh Generation Pullups and they are expensive! If I were to buy them at Whole Foods, it’d not only cost me $25 in gas to get there, but it’d cost about $18.99 plus tax for a package. But on Amazon.com, we use the Subscribe and Save feature and they only cost $35.80 for a pack of four, as opposed to $42.12 if we just ordered them one-time. And because we buy pull-ups through Subscribe and Save, we’re eligible for another discount through Amazon Mom, which means we only pay $26.60 for a pack of four and it comes with Free Shipping! That’s only $6.65 for a pack of pull-ups. Take that Whole Paycheck Whole Foods!

The pull-ups are shipped to us every month and it means I don’t have to endure the sympathetic looks from cashiers when they spot Noah sucking on his fingers in the grocery cart and realize the pull-ups are for him.

Makes both of our lives a bit easier.

So. That’s my top 5 list. I’ll continue with the remaining 5 later this week. I’m the sure the recurring theme is “Wow, that Leslie is Lazy with a capital L!” But any mom of a child with autism – or even just young children - can probably relate. And the next time I decide to throw myself a pity party because I had to park at the back of the parking lot at the grocery store, I'll think of all the pioneer moms before me and all the women who continue to mother their children in third world countries who’d give anything to be blessed with the everyday conveniences that I’m blessed with….

P.S. Have you noticed that I've just discovered how to do the strikethrough feature on blogger. I've always wanted to learn how to do that!