Food Fight

Jonathan attends an adult day program on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Since it is a forty minute drive and I’m the main source of transportation, those are the only days I can devote to getting him there, for now. After I pick him up at 3 pm, we usually make a night of it since we’re already out. I take him to the library to load up on free DVDs, to the movies, or bowling, to the Dollar Store or Wal-Mart to snoop around or anything else he might want to do. Often we go eat dinner someplace.

You must understand that going out with Jon requires clearing your schedule for the entire day, until midnight, and psyching yourself up for truck loads of patience. He is snail slow…no, make that snails-in-reverse slow. The Pony Express moving mail across country in the beginning of our nation’s history went faster in two weeks than Jon does in an hour. (The only time he is fast is when he wanders off. In seconds, he can vanish into thin air-but that’s another topic).

Yesterday I retrieved Jon from the program at 3 pm, when it ends, and took him to a scheduled doctor appointment (annual checkup) at 3:40. When we got back in the car I asked him where he wanted to go. He ripped out a coupon from a booklet he found in the car, for a local buffet, and handed it to me. The restaurant was just up the road so we headed there. 

It was 5 pm.

Jon loves buffet! Who doesn’t? The vision of counter after counter of delicacies displayed for the taking makes most folks I know salivate with happiness. For the price of two Starbucks' lattes or less you can eat yourself to death. For Jon, part of the fun is about having choices. So many choices are made for him, but here he is king of his universe! He shuffles slowly around the food tables looking intently at each item and can waste forty five minutes filling up his first round. 

On the door, I noticed the closing hour of 8 pm as we were entering the restaurant and realized instantly this could be trouble. Three hours is not long enough for Jon to do buffet. It takes him longer than that to go back for seconds. It was too late to reverse the decision. Jon was already heading for the clean stack of plates. Deal with him melting down now or possibly later? Hmmm? Quick decision made-I opted for later.

I finished eating in forty minutes, returning once to refill my plate. The entire time Jon was still wandering up and down the aisles between the food counters trying to decide what he wanted. He spent another fifteen minutes at the help yourself drink counter and finally sauntered back to our booth with a plate in each hand piled high in the middle and all the way to the edges with chow; then went back to retrieve the drink he had poured. 

It was 6:15.

I decided it might be prudent to warn Jon ahead of time about the early closing hour, although I had a feeling that wouldn’t matter. Every half hour or so I mentioned it. 

“You better eat faster Jon, they close early here,” or “You better go back up and get more food now if you want it because they close at eight.” 

Every time I brought it up he scowled at me. Not a good sign.

At 7:50 pm, Jon was still up to his eyeballs in two full plates. He had gone back to refill one of his plates and hadn’t made it to the dessert counter yet. I walked across the room to the young man who had been collecting plates and cleaning tables all evening, and asked him for a to-go box. 

“We don’t do to-go boxes here, “he replied.

“Yes, I know. Most buffets don’t,” I shot him a look of desperation, “but there’s no way you’re going to get that food away from him and he won’t leave without it.” 

I pointed at Jon across the room.

The young man thought for a few seconds, “Let me go ask the manager if it’s ok, given the circumstance.” 

He returned a few minutes later with an empty styrofoam container and I thanked him profusely. When Jon spotted me heading back to the booth with the container, he grabbed his plate and hid it on his lap under the table. Oh boy, this isn’t going to go well.

 

I tried everything I knew to get him to put his food in that box. No way. He wanted to stay there and eat it all and all attempts to get it away from him was going to end with it upside down on the floor, if I wasn’t careful. 

I saw the kitchen employees clearing the food counters and washing them down. Then the lights started going out until I heard one of the employees shout, “Hey, we still got customers over there in the corner!” 

It was 8:15.

I won’t bore you with more details of removing Jon and his dinner from the closed restaurant. Let me just say that there were six restaurant workers including the manager and of course me pleading, begging, bribing and cajoling. 

What did the trick was this mother finally getting annoyed enough to climb over the back of the booth bench, plunking down next to Jon and shoving his one hundred and forty pound body out of the seat with my derriere! It was 8:30 pm. 

Years ago one of Jon’s funny little sayings (that he picked up from a movie I think) was, “Sometimes it’s good to have a big butt.” 

Last night he wasn’t thinking it was so good that Mom has a big one.

May I politely ask this of you? If you ever come upon a parent or caregiver trying to deal with an obstinate developmentally disabled person don’t be quick to judge what you see, especially if you just happened upon the scene and weren’t there to view the whole incident. 

We love our kids and don’t abuse them, but there are times when different measures are required to break through that wall of stubbornness and resistance they can challenge us with. Most of us are just trying to do what’s best for them while maintaining our own sanity. Sometimes that’s a tough scale to balance.

A new Jon rule to add to my list; next time we go to a buffet, check what time they close BEFORE we get out of the car!