Whitterer on Autism

There is no end to the variety of food that you can pop onto a popsicle stick. Many may ask….. ‘why would you want to put a snack on a stick?’ to which I would reply, ‘why wouldn’t everyone want to put their snack on a stick?’

A snack on a stick is the perfect solution to two major issues:- people who need to keep their fingers clean on pain of death and people who like to cook things to eat. It’s the neophobic OCD equivalent of ‘physician heal thyself,’ or so I like to think.

I would go as far as to predict that sometime in the not so distant future, a certain young man will come into his own as an entrepreneur. He’ll set up as a sole trader in these unique snacks, unless someone else pinches his idea first. Even if someone else gets there before him, this will still be all well and good, as millions of people who currently suffer from digitalis will be relieved and set free.

I need to do a little research here, as thus far most snacks on sticks seem to be made of venison for some bizarre reason that I can’t quite fathom. Thereafter there are lollies [UK] and corn dogs [US] but otherwise there appears to a vast gaping hole in the market. We don’t plan to exploit this gap, rather we hope to plug all the little bleeding hearts and open mouths with delicious yumminess without risking dirt and damage to digits.

A while back we investigated snacks in cones, the cones that you usually use for ice-cream, which seemed like a cunning plan. However the texture of the average cone is not conducive to those who suffer from tactile defensiveness.

Another underlying issue is the difficulty some people have with physically holding either a stick or a cone. Some people cannot manage the pincher grip or if they can, do not have the physical strength to maintain the grip for very long. Other people have a grip that finds it hard to discriminate, such that the cone crumbles due to over-grasp. Either of these conditions can spell disaster to the potential snacker, although practice may help improve the situation.

I detect a certain level of incredulity creeping in here, so I shall repeat a tale of yesteryear for demonstration purposes.
[mainly because I cannot find that particular posting]

Not so long back we had a young visitor for a play date. When it came to snack time I put out chocolate chip cookies for four children and a bowl of goldfish crackers for my son. The visitor was horrified that my youngest child was being discriminated against. I explained that he did not care for chocolate chip cookies, without any further details. At that time he could only eat ‘single’ foods, Goldfish crackers, raisins, Cheerios [with a spoon so that there would be no physical tactile contact, due to the dusty crusty nature of the average Cheerio, and no milk]

Our young friend knew that I was a liar, that all children, indeed, probably all people, love chocolate chip cookies. He took matters into his own hands, on the sly, and sacrificed one of his own cookies to offer it to my son. His subterfuge failed due to the ear splitting scream of horror that thundered from him as he ran from the room at top speed.

I can still remember the expression on that little boy’s sweet face, a combination of disbelief and supreme surprise. That kind of mystification has haunted many a child who has witnessed similar behaviour on occasions too numerous to mention. An early introduction to cognitive dissonance, where two accepted facts vie for the same ground. Now if that cookie had been mounted on a stick, who knows how much faster we might have arrived where we are now?