Success!

I've been trying, for about a month now, to teach one of the autistic guys that I work with to say, "We're gonna turn this mother out!" When he (I'll call him "Mr. D") first started with us, he brought a handful of idioms with him, most notably: "I'm gonna work you to death," used when he's feeling particularly energetic, and "We've gotta play it by ear," used when the outcome of any given situation is uncertain.

Mr. D's picked up, from some of the other "normal functioning" employees there, a handful of other metaphoric expressions. "We gotta get up outta this hole!" Used as a sort of whip-crack. "Friday's big payroll!" a morale-booster. But to that last one, he's also added, "Eagles fly!" I'm not really sure what that one's all about, or what he's misinterpreting, but hearing him gleefully shout out, "Friday's big payroll, eagles fly!" in his Pee Wee Herman/Rainman voice is usually all it takes to break me out of whatever work-rut funk I happen to be in.

But I think we've had a breakthrough with this new one. He was having trouble with the inflection when I first introduced the phrase to him. He wanted to emphasize the word "mother" instead of "out," which, for me, subtly robs the expression of it's power. And then, in his way of not understanding metaphor, would say, "Turn this mother out. Friday give my mother my paycheck!" A conceptual disconnect. Hmm.

It was then that I realized that I hadn't exactly explained the meaning of this particular expression to him yet. I had seen him take a literal interpretation of metaphors before: One of his former work coaches had once said, jokingly, "Let's go to the mall, pick up chicks!" and Mr. D had said, "Lift paychecks with our strong muscles!" I had been coaching him on this new expression in context of pep talks about the coming day's tasks, which he likes to review every morning, but then it occurred to me to explain, "Do you know what 'Turn this mother out' means?" Silence. Then, "What. Means. 'Turn-this-mother-out?"

"It means Get This Job Done!" to which he shouted "How's that!" which is his way of saying "Oh, of course. Now I understand!"

So just this last week, unprovoked, I overheard him on the production line shout out to one of his line-mates, "We gotta turn this mother out!" Success!