Source: Reddit
I, working as door greeter watching out for lost Customers and folks with returns, working in lawn and garden section, I see this autistic young man.(I guess he is autistic, as he seems predominantly focused on his action and kinda has the actions of an autistic individual.)
This young man is sorting and moving potted flowers around putting them in a very specific order, matching colors, size of pots, and height of the flowers themselves, (doing an amazing job at it too I may add.)
He is bothering no-one and most folks are just noticing him doing a bang up job, But this one old crone of a woman sees him “working” she stands behind this young man arms folded and tapping her foot, (at first I was thinking maybe it was her son or someone she was shopping with, but the next thing she did proved to me I was mistaken.)
She clears her throat in that dreaded fashion we all know, “ahem…excuuuuuuuse me You need to help me.”
The young man pays her no mind, continuing with his task, she doesn’t like this, she clears her voice and replies louder,. YOU ARE NOT LISTENING TO ME, YOU ARE GOING TO HELP ME NOW!!!.
Before I can walk to her and ask her what she needs she reaches out and grabs this young man by the right arm just above his elbow, I guess the sudden action of this and the young man’s condition caused him to spin around and jerk his arm away from this lady, and the sudden movement startled the old woman causing her to step backwards and lose her balance causing her to sit down on her butt.
(It was like in slow motion watching her go from standing to sitting on the ground)
By the time I reached the young man to see if he was ok, his mother had shown up and was asking what had happened, before I could say anything the woman who had caused this was up and berating this young man. Saying he attacked her and she will have him fired and arrested, meanwhile this young man was almost crying and his mother was shocked.
I told the mom to take her son and calm him down, that he has done nothing wrong and just make sure he is ok.
Crazy old women didn’t like that I took his side, she began to lie and tell me she was the victim and she didn’t do anything, that the employee (young man) attacked her.
I told her not so kindly
- she was a liar and I had witnessed the whole incident
- The young man you forcibly grabbed does not work here and you assaulted him.
By now a crowd has gathered, and the crazy woman has noticed that no-one is giving her looks that they believe her side of the story.
She just puts her head down and walks quickly out the store.
When I turn to check on the young man and his mother She was smiling at me and was thanking me for my help, she shops here regularly and the young man likes to arrange the flowers, it’s calming to him, I express my regrets about the whole incident, the young man walks over to me and Pats my shoulder once and goes back to the flowers, the mom informed me that was the equivalent of a high five from him.
