My grandfather was different, he said "okay" for my diagnosis, read up on it, and when he read that Albert Einstein was suspected to have autism, he thought he had a bloodline of future scientists. Also he had a great trouble with saying "it's enough work for today", and was stubborn enough to work on something 18 hours if it meant it could be done under one day.

Autism has always been here. But instead of labeling someone as autistic and trying to improve understanding and communication, people were like, "That's a weird dude."

My father had a workbench drawer marked "Pieces of Wire Too Short to Use."

Mind you, he was an electrician.

I had to clean out my uncle's house when he passed away suddenly. Among many other things, this man had a box full of gum wrappers perfectly folded into little triangles. But don't worry, I've been assured he wasn't autistic, he was just a little antisocial and odd.

God damnit. Now I'm an autistic grandpa.

After reading these comments, I have concluded that everyone's grandpa is autistic.

I was eccentric when I was seven years old. They had meetings about me.

Was diagnosed with ASD around 50 years.

my grandpa has a collection of those glass caps they use on power towers

after searching for an image the correct term is "glass insulator for power lines" but I think "glass cap for power tower" sounds funner lol

I have a collection of those silica gel packets I find at clothing stores and supermarkets

My grandpa was very smart but seemingly clueless about the world. A lot of people said that he was a 12 year old in an adult body

He couldn't of possibly been Autistic...

real conversation:
"back when I was a kid autism didn't exist like you guys!"
"Ma... you're autistic..."

Is it Autism or just well organized?

I'm too lazy to keep things organized, does that get me out of autism?

In undergrad I once went back to my dorm room and eagerly showed my roommate the video of Grace Hopper illustrating how long lengths of time are (https://youtu.be/9eyFDBPk4Yw). A little while later, he was talking about this scene and how he likes the writing, because engineers are often much more excited by something seemingly mundane, such as the various lengths of wire needed for a project, than "this is my spaceship."

Anyway, I tell him, completely seriously and with no sense of irony, "yeah, but why would anyone care about lengths of wire?"

He yelled back, "You literally came in here to show me a video about lengths of wire."

Amateur. Back in the 90s i collected odds and ends because I wanted to exactly be like a Sierra online adventure game protagonist.

Also I collected coins. But I guess that was not eccentric enough to be an autistic thing?

My grandfather had similar collections. Of anything potentially useful.

I don’t believe in his case it was primarily due to neurodivergence but rather a depression-era childhood.

Could he afford a weed whacker? Yes, but he made one from an old vacuum, even in the 80s/90s. And so on.

Their lives started in poverty and they killed Nazis and we dishonour them horribly when they are barely cold. Especially America who is going to inflict both on everyone again.

My grandfather has a collection of construction engines models perfectly aligned on shelves in the veranda.

I'm all for ragging on the boomers for the shitstorm of cruelty, greed, and ignorance they've made.

But this is just another era's assorted cables drawer. You might need to rig something 🤷

Having not seen the subtitle, I thought at first that this was a drawer full of rods and belts and whatever else they used to beat the autism out of kids, back in the day.

Does buckets of old nails count? Which are also next to my buckets of old screws.

I do a lot of renovating and construction, some on contract but mostly for myself, and I save so much stuff from my work ... screws, nails, nuts, bolts, washers, wire, scrap wood, scarp plywood, glass, metal, roof tile, rubber products, plastic products, unique rocks, concrete block

I'm indigenous Canadian and I grew up poor in the 80s and I was raised by parents who were born in the wilderness in the 1940s. For a while I saw my grandparents who saw everything new as wondrous and special .... my grandmother saved every plastic bag that was still good and had only been used once. My grandfather collected scrap wood of anything and cobbled them together to build boxes, utensils or just build a hunting shack. I got my habits from my dad who worked every single day and just collected stuff on his way saving everything in case he needed it .... 50% of the it made sense and he did indeed use stuff he had kept around, the other 50% meant he just kept a forever pile of stuff that rusted and deteriorated in the yard.