a job like no other

One of these days, I'm writing a book about this job.

Today, all I had scheduled was a tea party.  I knew I would work on paperwork throughout the day but at 10:20, I was supposed to go to meet one of my favorite clients from the ATE program for a tea party in our cafeteria.  His job coach is trying to work with several of the ATE clients on manners.  She asked him if he would like to pick one of the staff people to have tea with and he picked me.  Honestly, I would have been pretty jealous if he had picked anyone else.

It was nice and I tried to engage him in conversation although his speech is limited to a repetitive small set of words.  A lot of the other employees in the building came by, saw us sitting at a cafeteria table with a table cloth and just marveled at us.  I suppose they were probably wondering how I can get paid for this but it was actually teaching him something.

That was the unusual but calm portion off the day.  An hour later, I heard that another client in our sheltered workshop program was apsirating on another client's fart.  Yep, his fart was so severe that it gave another client serious breathing problems.  They got the client to breathe normally eventually and head over to the other building for lunch.  A short while after that, Ashes got called to come across the street because the same client began choking again on the afterthought of the fart.  His breathing was so irregular that Ashes made me call 911.  When I did, I simply told the dispatcher that one of my clients was choking.  She asked if he was eating and I told her that it was something in the air.  She said, "Oh, so he's having an allergic reaction."  I said, "No...it was actually gas."  She laughed at me and told me that in 16 years on the job, she has never heard of any such thing.

So then I went outside to wait for the ambulance.  First, a firetruck with four firefighters arrived.  I directed them in and they told me to wait for the ambulance.  I didn't tell them why they were here.  By the way they were smiling at me, I think they knew.  Then an ambulance arrived with two EMTs.  Both of the vehicles had the sirens and the horns and the lights and it was all due to a fart.  The client ended up opting to go to the hospital and Ashes had to go with him.  He ended up being fine which is good because the story is only funny that way.