Living with Andrew (the stories begin)

I was an interesting personality – no doubt about it. You wouldn’t think so to look at me, several times I could be found sitting in the den where I would “play” video games on one of the many video game systems I had or “watch” a favorite movie. As I said earlier, it was all about the sound. I had a unique ability to rewind a VCR Tape to the same spot repeatedly and without even looking…and I do mean the same spot - Not the same scene or the same sentence or even the same word. I would rewind it to exactly the same syllable of dialogue or note of a song. And I would do this over and over until I tired of the 5 or 6 minute segment involved (which sometimes took days) and move on to the next. It usually took months to watch a movie in its entirety.


Because I had hearing loss, I would press my ear to the speaker and listen and smile - so much so that I wore spots in the TV cabinet where I pressed my ear to the speaker - And then I would rewind the tape and do it again – so many times that I wore the finishoff the “rewind” button.

With video games, I did essentially the same thing, going back to the same spot over and over. It didn’t matter what was actually going on in the game – I don’t think I would have understood anyway – only that the sound was repeated. Yet, I somehow managed to get into parts of the game that no one else ever could and I even finished a few games.

By the way, in my world there was a place for everything and everything had to be in its place. This applied not only to “belongings” like my videos and games, but also where my dishes were set, how my coat was hung up, even if the piano keyboard cover was closed. And if you didn’t adhere to my “rules”, you were in for it – if it was a minor infraction, I would simply pinch the offending item between my thumb and index finger and hand it back to you, if it was a significant offense I would glare at you over the rim of my glasses until you complied and if, heaven forbid, it was a major infraction I would frown at you while I pounded my chest. …