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Have You Ever Eaten Horse?
In which I reveal another embarrassing autism faux pas.
I recently watched a free Masterclass in Writing by David Sedaris, in which he suggested getting out into the real world and asking strangers unusual questions.
He gave some examples: one was to ask people whether they had ever eaten horse. He may have said horse meat, but I wasn’t taking notes because I was too entranced by the mismatch between what I thought he looked like and the reality. I had only ever heard him on the radio, and I had imagined him to be an elderly lady. Entranced I was.
His idea got lodged in my brain, and this week, I decided it was time to give his masterful idea a go. What could possibly go wrong?
Just the one teeny weeny thing worth mentioning: I am autistic.
This means that I dislike speaking to strangers. Or getting too close to them. It also means I could win Olympic Gold if only there were a faux pas category.
I decided to choose Wednesday for this exciting new venture toward my journey to become the old lady version of David Sedaris — in 15 years' time: that was how long he wrote before publishing anything.
I chose Wednesday because Ashlynn White wrote an article about Wednesdays and in it was this little gem: