♫ What do you do with a problem like The Booga? ♫

Lord help you if you take something that Booga is writing away…Even if you just want to show it to someone.
He is the same way with his artwork but not to the same degree anymore.
Sometimes people actually ask if he will draw something specifically for money and Booga loves money. So he’ll do that.

Booga has definite things that are personality quirks that come along with the autism.

There are times he is an eight year old, sometimes when he is thirteen. But, I don’t ever see him as a nineteen year old- ever.

He has specific things he does every day…Like go to the store at school and buy a pop (with sugar, which is verboten at home) and a snack food.
He has to wear his sun glasses and freaks out when he looses them; he wears them even when he doesn’t need to wear them.
He likes base ball caps and trucker’s caps and has to wear one every time he goes out.

Any length of time in a car or truck is accompanied by his mp3 player.
We have to tell him, “Booga! We’re just going to the gas station, it’s gonna take like two minutes….”

Booga also has no filter on his own internal dialog, your going to hear every thought he has in his head. He does the voices of individuals he has seen on television and in the movies. He uses their phrases as a bridge to communication with us mere mortals here on Earth.

At Christmas, his brother and sister bought him a shirt with Darth Vader on it and he walked down the hall saying, “I will never wear it”, out loud right in front of them…Again, no filter.
He can’t stand Star Wars and will plug his ears and run down the hall to his room if you are watching it on the family television.

There are certain movies, characters, and movie stars he completely; and for unknown reasons, have determined are bound for the eternal fires of hell.
Some of these include: Julie Andrews or Mary Poppins and for some reason, The Blues Brothers…..
Apparently only Julie Andrews AKA: Mary Poppins is bound to water-ski across the lake of fire. We don’t know why, maybe there is something we don’t know going on here? Perhaps he knows something we don’t? Who knows?
The disdain for the poor Blues Brothers I think has to do with his hatred of the local ice cream place near our home. They have two Blues Brothers statues in their ice cream shop and he associates those figures with that place. He would rather go to Dairy Queen in a nearby town and get soft serve because for some reason Booga can taste that they don’t serve the same kind of soft serve as Dairy Queen.

They don’t have fabulous and calorie laden specialties like Death by Chocolate sundae,
Blizzards, nor is there the chance that we might also see a movie ….

One night we were coming home from getting ice cream from The Dairy Queen and since we live near a lake we often like to look at the ducks or “duckies” as my husband calls them.

We slow down in the spring time and check and see if they are paddling around in the swampy areas getting ready to nest.
Apparently this particular night Booga had a movie he wanted to watch on television and we were taking too much time to get home.

As we slowed down to look for ducks he yelled at his father, “Dad! There is no time to look at duckies!”

It’s even funnier because of Booga’s almost manly, nineteen year old voice.

We laughed at him and apparently he didn’t see the humor at his parents sojourn into whimsy.