Look, I’m usually pretty chill about most things. I’ve got a pretty good handle on what textures I can and can’t touch. For those neurotypicals who may be reading, neurodivergent people sometimes struggle with particular textures and often get mislabelled as being overly sensitive or childish.

  For example, wool. I cannot touch wool, because it is scratchy and makes me squirm. However, there are particular types of refined wool that seem to be okay (you’ll find that sometimes people talk about it in a similar way to allergies). I also can’t touch sand, or anything that’s sticky. If I get even one microgram of maple syrup on my finger then I am rushing to the nearest tap to get it off as soon as possible. There better be soap nearby, because that bitch doesn’t come off without a fight.

  But splinters – oh my God(s?), splinters – they are a constant source of fear with me. I work in theatre and occasionally with setbuilding and transportation, and sometimes those set pieces are made of unvarnished wood. The splintery kind. The kind that my dad noticed they don’t sell at Bunnings.

  Of course they don’t sell it at Bunnings, because only a madman would dare touch such a thing without taking serious precautions. Unvarnished wood (I’ve been saying unvarnished, but I haven’t done the research to see if that’s what it actually is. I could be making up a word or referring to the wrong thing) is a slippery slope. Well, it’s not slippery – it’s actually quite frictious. But you know what I mean.

  The reason I find it so intimidating is because it is so easy to get a splinter, and when you do, what’s to say that you’ll be able to get it out? How do you know it won’t split off into your bloodstream and give you some kind of disease, causing you to die? I understand that such a circumstance is quite unlikely (perhaps to the realm of extreme improbability), but basic risk and reward principles tell me that I should not transport any splintery wood, because I believe that the risk of death in all things that I do should be zero. Or less.