Who's Really to Blame?

We had two separate incidents this week with our higher-functioning individual not getting his way. He could argue with a wall, and sometimes may actually be when we get fed up and walk out of the room and still hear him arguing. He will argue and debate for hours, but you know when he is done when the blame falls on some crazy outside third party.

For example, this past weekend, he was very upset about the temperature in the house. His room is upstairs, and unfortunately, heat rises. He has a fan in his room and almost always keeps his windows open, however on this particular day he also wanted the air conditioner on. This would not be a problem had it not been 50 degrees outside. We overheard him arguing with weekend staff about his "right" to turn on the air conditioner in "his" home, and decided she needed us to intervene.

When we went over, the conversation began about him and his comfort. When we discussed other ways for him to be comfortable, the complaint turned to his roommate. When we pointed out that he also pays rent and utilities and it is 60 degrees downstairs and he has the "right" to be comfortable to, the complaint turned to the "freakin" weekend staff and their need to control everything in the house. We brought up the fact that our side of the house is the same way, and Joshua's bedroom is also upstairs, but that he is considerate of the fact that other people live there too and doesn't try to freeze out the rest of us. This seemed to have made some sort of impact because he finally calmed down a little and turned the blame where it needed to be. On the "freakin" builders of the house. Whew! We knew we were done when the blame transferred to the very distant third party.

But just to show us he meant business, he blew out the pilot light on the water heater upstairs. 'Cause you know how much heat those pilot lights generate...

A few days later, he goes out and sits in the van. When Lowell goes out and asks him if he is wanting to go somewhere, he pulls a "just drive and I'll tell you where to go." Well, this doesn't really work for us and we tried to explain that. He wasn't really buying it, but then realized that we truly weren't going to just drive until we got to the surprise destination. So he pops out with, "I need to go to Kansas City to the airport." Uhmm, what??? What kind of crazy afternoon activity have you got planned???

He goes on to tell us that he has a box of foreign change and wants to go to the airport to exchange it for American money. He says he has tried to go to local banks and they have told him that the airport is the closest place to exchange currency. Lowell and I are kind of dumbfounded and realizing that he doesn't know that there is a reason people bring you back change when return from travel to other countries. It's not worth anything!!!!!

We tried to explain that the airport is an hour away, we have to pay for parking, we are pretty sure that he is going to be disappointed with his exchange if it is even possible, and then another hour back home. We also point out that our van is not in the best condition and we aren't sure if it could make the drive, and that if we are going out of the county, the trip has to be approved by a supervisor. These clearly meant nothing to him because after our explanation of this he gets really upset and yells, "If we weren't standing here talking about it we could have been there and back by now!!" Okay, so maybe that whole two hour drive part was missed somewhere in there. Every time we try to discuss this, we very literally get yelled at about how we could have been there and back if we'd just shut up and get in the van.

When we refused to succumb to his wishes, he goes inside the house, gets the house phone, goes back outside and sits in the van to call our supervisor. We aren't sure why he felt the need to sit in the van to call unless he worried we were likely to jaunt off to the airport when he was inside for a minute. We hear him yelling at her about his rights and how we aren't respecting his wishes. Then he gets mad at her and hangs up. He immediately calls her back, realizing she is his only hope at this point. He yells at her for a bit, but we all relaxed and knew it was over when the blame shifted to the mechanics who work on our van. If they would do a half decent job, the van would be in fine condition to drive all over the state. Since he himself is a big reason that the van is in such terrible shape, he declined to talk further about it and decided he just wanted to go to the gym instead.

We haven't heard anything further about the airport, so maybe that's over, but I'm sure there will be another secret mission awaiting us very soon.