Losing speech temporarily

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This happened to me for the first time ever just a few months ago.

I'm a high school teacher. I teach Culinary Arts. I'm also autistic.

We have a recycling program at my school. Those of us who generate a lot of recycled materials (such as Culinary Arts) with boxes, cans, glass bottles, plastic cartons, plastic wrapping, paper, and cardboard, have been issued these big two wheeled bins.


Everyone else has had to make do with large cardboard boxes and blue trash bags which are exclusively used at my school for recycling.

One day I arrived at work to find my recycling bin was missing. When I asked the head custodian about my missing bin, he told me that I had confiscated it because it had been full of food scraps. The custodians had apparently collected all of the bins the previous day to put out for the recycling truck.

I had several thoughts about this:

1) My bin was not filled with food scraps because:

2) I keep the bin at Station 1 which as a chef instructor prep and storage station, students do not have access to.

3) Since the bins aren't labelled, the bin that was contaminated with food scraps could have belonged to anyone ... but because I teach Culinary Arts and work with food, the custodian automatically consumed that Culinary Arts was the culprit.

4) Taking my bin and making a false accusation seemed horribly unfair.

My problem was that when I tried to articulate these thoughts, I was so upset that I kept stuttering the word, "I."

"I ... I ... I ..."

It didn't help that the custodian continued to disparage me by telling me that I really should have known better and that the recycling company debits $50 if they have to interrupt their operation to find and eliminate food scraps.


"I ... I ... I ..."

"Since you weren't very responsible, I've taken your bin!"

"I ... I ... I ..."

(sigh)

Instead of a bin, I now have a cardboard box and some blue trash bags for recycling. The sad thing is that I heard that food somehow got into one of the bins the other day.

Did the head custodian EVEN THINK of dropping by my kitchen to say something to the affect of, "Gosh Chef, I thought you were the problem but I was wrong. I'm really sorry."

Heck no.

I never got an apology ... but without a bin, I have also gotten no further blame.

As to why I couldn't articulate my outrage, I think I had so many upsetting and conflicting thoughts that they jumbled together and left me momentarily unable to speak.

I did not care for this experience.