You Look Like Dang It!

Have I told you lately that I love you?
Well, it’s because honestly I don’t know you so why should I say that? But as a person in God’s world I must tell you that I do. This morning it just came flooding out of my hands on to my keyboard and so there it is.
Booga is one of the most fastidiously clean people you will ever meet. He takes a shower everyday and wears his favorite aftershave every morning. For a person with special needs whom you would think you would have to be right on top of to make sure his grooming is up to snuff, this kid, well, is similarly like my brothers in the way that he can’t stand to be anything but impeccable in his appearance..
It is odd.
However, praise God for this smallest of favors.
If someone has a beard or if their hair is uncombed or they smell bad or they are dirty…Well according to Boog, “You look like dang it!”
If he doesn’t like the way something looks, “It looks like dang it!”
You don’t feel well, well then, “You feel like dang it!”
It’s adorable; this resistance to using any kind of profanity to get his ideas across and on another level it is part of the humor that makes living with the Autism tolerable and in some aspects almost enjoyable.
How much less laughter we would have in our lives without our Boog.
He can’t stand having a beard-he hates it! We made him grow one, once for a Christmas picture where we had him dress like Santa and hold the cats. It was an adorable picture but he couldn’t wait to shave. He looked a great deal more like his older brother than we ever thought possible. But then again, they are brothers. What a handsome lot of men I have.
Now shaving for the most part is something that I have to keep close eyes on because one can never forget the horror of him cutting himself. It was pretty monumentally scary I must say. I will never forget the utter terror in his voice when he, covertly had shaved in the bathroom and came out and said in a frightened, shaky, voice, “Mom, I have bleeding and blood….”
I shutter even now to think about it.
The really bad part about it (and I hesitate to tell you about it but the really appalling part of Booga’s hygiene routine) is his insistence on being naked when he shaves. 
Yikes!
Yikes in a big way!
I’ll never forget wanting to gouge my eyes out for the crime of accidentally walking in on him one time when he was getting in the bath tub.
“My eyes! My eyes!”
There is nothing more unnerving to a parent than walking in on their grown child naked and shaving in the bathroom. Nothing more heart rendingly difficult than getting that image deleted from your mind than the grown child naked with a face full of shaving cream and sink full of water.
And I’ve done it. I’ve walked in on him shaving at the sink, stark naked.
GAH!!!
Once you have seen it, well; as a friend of mine put it, you cannot “un-see” it. But since he is insistent on shaving naked (???) and since I have to know when it is happening so that at least if something happens I can render assistance immediately; I guess I will keep the door closed and pray that I’ll never have to do so. If something does happen and I hope to The Lord Almighty it never does, then I will have to have years of therapy afterward. However, I “need” to know because Boog simply can’t be left to his own abilities while shaving because of the whole “blood and bleeding” episode. It’s like cooking or washing or loading the dishwasher.
Left on his own- bad things happen to good people.
Anyway, to continue….
He is a clothes horse.
Thankfully, he is a clothes horse with the thought process that a pair of jeans and a nice golf shirt is the height of fashion. A tie and nice pants and a nice shirt for church; Or a t-shirt and pajama bottoms on a day when we aren’t going anywhere.
And luckily he isn’t particularly hard to buy for, he likes going to Goodwill, because for one thing, they have cheap movies, for another they have cheap CD’s that he can buy with his small amount of money that he is given. They have jeans that are in pretty good shape and nice golf shirts; sometimes brand new ones with the tags still on them.

People don’t realize the good savings they can get from going into second hand stores.
It is very true that one mans junk is another mans treasure. It’s so very true.
Recently I read where a University some time from us is now doing a thing where the students can give their used furniture and clothing and so forth that they are going to throw out at the end of the semester, to an organization that will set it up in a hall and let people come in and take whatever they want for free.
Apparently the last time they did it the general public cleared them out in less than an hour and left only a single bag of clothing that was taken to Goodwill.
I remember my husband and I, as a young couple doing what is commonly called “dumpster diving” when the University began to throw out their students furniture for the end of the year.
More than once did I find a piece of furniture or a table or something I could take home and use in my own house.
I still have a table that folds down in my office and it was in a dumpster. Amazing what people think is junk.
Thank God that someone finally realized that people will take what other’s don’t want and use it. Thank God someone realized that throwing something that is perfectly fine just because it was inconvenient to carry home was a waste!
I thank God for the people who take their gently used clothing that they have either no purpose for or have not worn in a year to Goodwill so that I will have something to buy for my Booga.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I don’t just buy used clothing for him or myself. One of my favorite hobbies is going through clearance racks at department stores and seeing what kind of good buys I can get on brand new clothes for me, or Boog or for my husband and even for my children, although they generally buy their own clothes now. I rarely buy anything at full cost. Rarely.
I do but it has to be something pretty freaking amazing.
Even the materials I make into pajamas bottoms and sew into useful items at home I buy on sale generally, unless it’s something pretty spectacular.
Live poor- It’s economical.
Now don’t sit there and think, well, you live poor, you must dress poorly. No no, my friend, I have good taste. Even though I shunned my mother’s fashion sense as a teenager, I as an adult, hear her voice in my head when I look at clothes.
The last thing I want to do if I buy something is come home and put it on and hear from Booga, that I look like dang it!
No one wants to look like dang it!