THe scarier side of parenting.

My son is a truly amazing child. Many children with autism are socially withdrawn, and unable to connect with people in a recognizable way. My son is the polar opposite. He's friendly, sweet, and loving, and incredibly innocent. Wy thinks the whole world is his friend. He has no fear of strangers, he'll walk up to anyone and start talking to them, no matter how friendly, or scary the person might be. Wy doesn't judge. It's a wonderful quality, one I don't want him to lose, but it's also a potentially dangerous thing.

I was on the phone the other day, trying to get a problem with my computer solved when the doorbell rang. By the time I got to the living room (Which wasn't long, my house is pretty tiny) Wy had the front door open, and was inviting the particularly scary looking man at it into the house. The guy had about 4 days worth of stubble, was wearing dirty clothes, had a bandanna around his head and just looked "off".

He also had his foot in the door, ready to walk into the house.

I immediately went into Mama Bear mode, put myself between the guy and Wyatt, and closed the screen door in his face and locked it. Hung up the phone and asked the guy what he wanted. Not a nice "What can I do for you" a full blown, in your face, "What do you want?!"

He launched into the whole convoluted story about how he lives in Virgina, but he's origionally from Winston, he's visiting family, he knows a lady up the street, you can ask, she knows him, and his truck broke down and...

That was all I needed to hear. See, I grew up on Long Island, and lived in NYC for a while. I've heard almost every variation on this story imaginable. It's always the same - My purse was stolen, I lost my train ticket, I left my wallet in a cab, I don't know anyone in the area, I got mugged on the subway, - and it always ends with - can you just give me 5, 10, 20 dollars - whatever the going rate of a crack rock is at the moment.

I cut the cock and bull story short, stuck my hand in the guys face and said "Just get to the point".

"Could you give me 20 dollars, that's all I need to get my truck back".

I told him "NO" and shut the door in his face, locked it, locked the back door and called the police.

Then I had to sit Wyatt down and talk to him about opening the door. I didn't even bother to tell him not to open the door to strangers, because as I said, the whole world is his friend. I just told him he's never allowed to open the door. When the police officer came I gave him a description of the guy, and had him talk to Wyatt about not opening the door. Tim talked to him, and his father did as well, but I don't know if it really took.

I'm going out tomorrow and getting a chain lock for the front and back doors, one that I can put up at my eye level so Wy can't reach it. This way, he CAN'T open the door.

It's this type of thing that's kept me from enrolling him in a summer day camp at the local rec. center. The camper to staff ratio is just too low for me to feel that he'd be safe. I'd love to enroll him in a camp for autistic children, but those camps run about $1000.00 for a week, and they only give out a few scholarships each year.

It just scared the living shit out of me. What if the guy had gotten all the way in the house? Crackheads are capable of ANYTHING, even hurting a child. I live in a decent neighborhood, but the area around me isn't so great. This is the first time I've ever had anything like this happen, and hopefully it'll be the last.

I swear, if it ever happens again, I'm going to start answering the door with a sword in my hands. I'm not kidding, John has 4 of them in his room, I'm going to start keeping one in the living room closet!

I'm telling you, Wes Craven and Steven King have nothing on my kid, he can scare me worse than anyone on the planet!