I have issues with noise. It's part of the whole ASD thing, alongside issues with light or, more precisely, brightness.

I've had my hearing tested and have extensive details on the high sensitivity of my poor little ears. Why they had to test me is beyond my comprehension...I mean, it's not like I didn't know I can hear things other people either can't or just ignore.

I can hear the bubbles popping in bottles of juice or water, tell the difference between a tv on standby or a dvd-player on standby, pick up on ticking watches, the hum of fans inside computers, frequencies from computer monitors, computer hard-drives and cd players, lights (street lamps are the worst), and the electrics in cars. I can pick up on the green man at crossings over a block away from me...and don't get me started on people chattering in the street. Lying in bed at night I can hear my pulse, the blood rushing through my ears, as my head lies against the pillow. Putting on a pair of headphones just makes it pound louder over the beat of the music.

My mum can pick up a book and never hear another sound until she stops reading. I don't have that ability to block things out.

I'll use professional Ear Protectors when things start to get too much. They block out external noise, but leave me to deal with the pounding of my heartbeat and the hissing of my blood rushing through my ears. That said, it's better than being bombarded by the noise from everything else too.

Anywhere with a crowd can be a nightmare. I'll pick up on the conversations around me whether I want to or not. If there's ten people chattering in a restaurant around me, I hear the ten different conversations. It's like having seven televisions and three radios, all tuned to different channels, on at the same time and blaring out at the same volumn.

They all interrupt one another, merge together in my head and become one big noise that I can't even begin to process to understand. Then the waiter will come over and ask what I'd like to order. I'll see his lips move, but there's a very high chance that whatever he's saying will be completely lost in the deluge from everywhere else.

At work things just become silly. I can hear telephones ringing in the other departments which results in me checking to see if I have to pick up within my own department. To me it sounds as though it's ringing at the next desk. Someone two rooms down from me, repeatedly squeaking a stress ball, will have me grinding my teeth in no time. The guys I work with, however, don't even hear it. They have to go out into the corridor and open all the doors before coming back and saying "Oh yeah, but you have to strain to hear it."

No, no I don't. There's no straining involved at all.

I'd like to get the opposite of a digital hearing aid - something that blocks certain frequency sounds - but I'm not entirely sure there's any company out there that makes anything like that.

Shopping

I have to go grocery shopping this evening after work. I really don't like grocery shopping. I know what's going to happen when I enter the store. Give or take one-of-a-kind surprises, most of my attempts at grocery shopping all involve roughly the same things. Take my last visit, for example:

As soon as I set foot in the store I pick up on the continuous buzzing from the flourescent lights. Underneath that irritating frequency is the low, but relentless, hum of the air conditioner units. Then there's the chattering of all the other shoppers, the eardrum-shattering tannoy announcements, the ubiquitous background music and the random squeals of unhappy children. Three steps in and it's obvious that, regardless of the all-season grip on the soles of my hiking boots, there's no way they're going to save me from sliding on the shiny, white, polished-until-it's-deadly, floor.

The incessant flickering of the horribly bright lights gives me two choices: I can either duck my head, concentrate solely on my boots for the duration of the task, and hope to make it to the groceries I need without walking into anything (or anyone) or start squinting against the brightness, and the almost just as bright reflections bouncing off the gleaming floors, performing my very bad impression of Clint Eastwood.

I opt for keeping my head up and squinting; walking into complete strangers, or falling over display racks, isn't on my top twelve list of Things I Want to Do.

Squinting and shuffling - it's the easiest way to avoid slipping and sliding - I carefully make my way towards aisle four, Home of the Breakfast Cereal. By the time I reach aisle two, though, I'm practically cringing; there's a couple having a disagreement over soup. Really, I don't care how annoyed you are, there's no reason to screech like a tortured cat at the person standing right beside you, when you're out in public. By all means feel free to screech at him when you're at home but, please, not when you're out. The entire world doesn't need to know that you don't agree with his soup choices.

As I reach aisle four - and the distance helps her screeching to quieten to a level where I can actually make out all of the words leaving her mouth - I realise I was wrong; she's not arguing with him at all. She's actually agreeing with him. Why she has to agree so loudly is anyone's guess.

I turn the corner into aisle four and find that it's no longer the Home of the Breakfast Cereal. It's now the Home of Baking Goods. Resigning myself to a hunt for my cereal, I turn to leave the aisle. Suddenly something cold and wet pokes into my hand. I practically jump out of my skin and whirl round so quickly that I slip. Grabbing onto the nearest shelf with one hand while waving the other wildly to keep my balance, eyes squinting against the light, chest heaving and with my heart pounding from the unexpected touch, I look around to find the culprit.

A chocolate-brown labrador. Probably about a year old. Tail wagging, head cocked, tongue lolling...and looking suspiciously pleased with herself.

I kneel down to say Hello and, after questioning her on how she got into the store past security and explaining that she shouldn't sneak up on people for fear of bringing on some sort of sneaking-dog-induced heart attack, I realise that I'm talking with a dog the same way I would a six-year-old and have a covert look around to see if there's any witnesses. Everyone else has abandoned aisle four so I'm safe. Another quick scratch behind her ears, a warm lick to my chin in return, and I'm off to hunt down my Frosties.

Before I get halfway down aisle five I can hear the yowling and screaming that announces the arrival of a temper tantrum further on in the store. I can now add grimacing (high-pitched squeels always put my teeth on edge) to my medley of shuffling and squinting.

Ten minutes later I find the toddler responsible for the eardrum-bursting high notes. He's toned it down a little and is lying, on his back, in the middle of the floor in aisle thirteen, yelling whenever a related adult looks in his direction, purple faced and kicking his feet. He is, as luck would have it, slap-bang in the middle of the new Home of the Breakfast Cereals.

I'm not brilliantly coordinated at the best of times and slippy floors don't help so I have to actually stop and think as to which way would be best to pass the randomly moving toddler. If I try going to my left there's a chance that the occasional flailing arm might whack me hard enough to result in my stepping on his head but, then, going right and running the gauntlet of his kicking legs doesn't appeal much either. Deciding that landing on his feet is better than landing on his head, I step to the right side of the aisle and start towards the collection of blue and white cereal boxes.

A few minutes later and I've found the real Frosties and not the store's own brand forgery and head for the milk. Its surprisingly easy to find, not having moved since my previous visit, and within minutes I'm on my way to the tills.

There's twenty-five separate tills but only three of them have cashiers. Of those three, it would appear that only one knows how to properly scan a barcode and she has at least forty people in her queue while the others share five between them. Proving my stupidity to one-and-all, I choose to give one of the other cashiers the benefit of the doubt; maybe the book he's scanned nine times just has a badly printed barcode.

Fifteen minutes later I'm reading the small print on the milk, having read every inch of the cereal and the packets of the five different types of sweets stacked in piles around the counter. He's still alternating between scanning that book and pressing the buzzer for a supervisor. Other people have jumped ship and joined the throng for the girl who can scan...although it now appears that she hasn't quite mastered the art of taking off security tags.

By the time it's actually my turn to be checked out two fights have broken out, the tannoy announcer is going berserk, security are yelling at anyone who looks in their direction, the little woman behind me is smacking the conveyor belt with a newspaper (whether it ate something she desperately wanted or she was just passing the time, I have no clue), my chosen cashier is eying the barcode on my bottle of milk with dread and Scanner Girl is screaming for people to stop jumping into her queue.

Ten minutes, nineteen scans of my milk, and two visits by a supervisor later, I'm outside and trying to convince myself that it wasn't all that bad and that I'll never have to go back...until next time.