NIK NIK NIK

My brother Neil and Gerald both worked at International Harvester and both had riders. One evening Neil called to tell Gerald that he was changing shifts and he wanted to know if Gerald would give his rider a ride to work. Gerald said that he would, but he would have to ride in the front seat as Doug always slept in the back seat.

Gerald picked up the guy at his house, amazingly, just one street over from us. Gerald usually left at 5:30 AM. As Gerald was going into South Charleston, the new rider threw his hands on the dash and began saying "NIK, NIK, NIK" in a very loud voice. Of course, it scared Gerald and it woke up Doug. Gerald had not said a word but Doug said, "What the Hell is that?" The guy handed cards to the guys and Gerald stopped the car to read the card and he learned that the man has Tourette's Syndrome.

When Gerald told us about the incident, Les said, "Well, at least he didn't call you a douche bag!"

After I educated myself about Tourette's, I learned that coprolalia (uttering inappropriate words and phrases) among Tourette sufferers is rare.

One day in Bob Evans Restaurant, we were in a booth and in one section over we heard a man "ticing" in a loud voice. [Their utterances are known as tics.] The Manager was going around to tables and apologizing for the situation. When the Manager came to us, I said, "It's obvious the guy has Tourette's; he's not going to hurt anybody; he just has to get the tics out of his system."

They were moving people from the section and I told the Manager, "You can move us over there, because it won't bother us."

We moved to that section and the waitress said, "You're so kind." Gerald said, "No, she isn't; she's just weird!"