Sainsbury's and the ASD mob

It's no secret that I have Aspergers. Technically it doesn't exist any more, so I think I am now described as having ASD - Autism Spectrum Disorder. There would be no point in trying to keep it secret: I am an odd duck, and always have been. My oddness, though, is quite quiet: no dramatic meltdowns and no massively noticeable behaviours.

I hate crowds and crowded places, and in crowds go into survival mode. I am so ill-at-ease that I seem to shut down and focus solely on getting out alive. My Asperger's main strategy to deal with this is to make me avoid crowds wherever possible, and this means trying to steal a march on crowds by getting to places before they do. I do this all the time.

Yes, I know, Weird. But there it is.

Armed with list, I head off to the supermarket for the weekly shop. I am always there before the doors open, and so are a whole bunch of other people: the SAME people.

Each day of the week (i never go on Sundays because of the tourist hordes) there is a distinct and different group of people who come on the same day every week. A very few, like me, are disorganised and appear on different days of the week, but each weekday has its own devotees. It's rare that there is someone new. Waiting with trolleys for the doors to open at 0800, we chat. We know who doesn't chat and don't involve them. 

It gets worse. 

In a vast empty carpark - before they have even turned on the sign that flashes up your numberplate and how long you have got before they come to take your wheels off - we all park in our favourite spots, all over the place. You'd think that we would park nearest to the entrance. Forget it. Some prefer to park at the farthest end, and walk, in all weathers, to the store.

I was going to say that this is like behaviour in men's urinals, where the unspoken rule is that you always go to the urinal farthest away from the person or people already there. This can be a complex algorithm at busy times, but trust me: this is a rule. If someone stands next to you when there is space further away, you tend to zip up quickly and uncomfortably and get out of there. 

But the carpark behaviour is different. A minority of the early mob park in adjacent bays: most park carefully apart. All these people like to park in particular spots. None of us parks randomly. Why ? Who knows ? I'd really LIKE to know.
  
I have two favourite bays to park in, both apparently irrational and both completely necessary. Actually there are reasons. What are they ? Easy: both have only one adjacent space, thus reducing the chance of damage from other parkers (except that there are none at this time in the morning), and both require minimum manoeuvring to get out of the car park (though it is always possible to drive in forward and out again forward).

I am guessing that all the others have their own undisclosed and similarly loopy reasons.

Did I mention that there is a higher than average incidence of nodding dashboard ornaments which I put down to stimming. And just for clarity, no, I do not have dashboard ornaments. Definitely not.

We crowd avoiders tend to chat to the staff, and many of us know the staff by name. There is always a lot of chat at the checkouts, not with each other, but serially with whoever is on the till. You never seem to get this at busy times. We appear to personalise the shopping experience in an anonyomous shop by removing large groups who roll up later.

It struck me the other day that maybe all these early shoppers have ASD. The parking is so striking that if you gave me a plan of the carpark, and an indication of which vehicles were in 20 spaces, I could tell you immediately which day of the week it was. And it would be very easy to do the same from seeing who was hovering at the entrance waiting for the doors to slide back.

Now if that isn't weird, what is ? 

Oh dear, oh dear.