I want to thank Aaron and Michelle for sharing this story on the thAutcast Facebook page (you miss so much, those of you who don't visit it-- and we miss so much when you don't participate in our discussions there.)

Emily Mueller loves the Muses parade, in the wonderfully obsessive way that only an 11-year-old with autism can love something.  Her mother Amy wrote a blog post describing their preparations for the annual event:

Each night, after she listed her daily gratitudes and wrote in her diary, she would find the countdown calendar drawn on pink paper and dressed in white, silver, purple, and red glitter. With her very special pen, she would carefully cross off one more day, informing me of  the new countdown as she called out wishes of sweet dreams. As the countdown slimmed from a month, to a week, and then to days, her excitement grew.

“I don’t know if I should wear a costume this year or not, Mama,” she contemplated in the middle of a lesson on polygons for her sixth grade math class.

“Mama. do you think I will get a shoe?”

“What do you think the floats will look like?”

“Which book should I bring with me to read while we wait?”

“Should I take pictures with my cell phone?”

“I am so excited for beads, Mama!”

She was preoccupied with the parade, the Krewe of Muses, and our Mardi Gras holiday.

Emily's joy was spoiled, though, by a group of drunken louts who bothered her, and one young man who insulted her:

He turned back to us, looked my daughter in the eye, and shouted to no one in particular. “This retard is making watching the parade a challenge.”

My daughter looked at me, knowing he was talking about her, and tears formed in her eyes. I wrapped my arms around her a bit tighter and whispered in her ear that the man was drunk, didn’t know what he was saying, and sometimes the best thing to do is to know the truth about yourself and ignore what other people say.

My words didn’t matter, though. By then, she had heard what he had said, knew what he was implying about her, and she wanted to go home. Had she not been with, I may have had a few choice words of my own, but I knew it wasn’t the time and certainly not the place.

A night she had been looking forward to, planning and anticipating for a few months, had just been marred by that bad behavior of a grown person.

“Mama. please, can we go home? He told everyone I’m a retard. I’m not a retard, am I, Mama?” she asked. The grin was gone, replaced by a quivering lip. The sparkle in her eyes had dispersed, and they were now filled with a flow of tears falling down her full, pink cheeks.

“Are you sure, honey? We could walk somewhere else and watch the parade. We could move.”

“No, Mama. I don’t think that would be a good idea. People there will probably think I’m a retard, too. People don’t want people like me at parades. They won’t let us in to watch the parade. I just know it.”

Fortunately, the Krewe of Muses contains many people who wanted to let Emily know just much much they did want people like her, and Emily herself, at their parade.  They wanted her there so much that they gave a special "Emily-Gras", just for her:

There were at least 70 people at the event and they had a lot to say about the incident:

• “It was the most heartbreaking story and Mardi Gras should be all about kids and good, clean fun, not idiots. So, my whole float got together, we call ourselves the ‘Flamingos’ and everyone wanted to, well half of them are here, bring shoes and throws. We wanted to show Emily that the Muses are all about fun and kids and a great time,” Muses krewe member Renee Rich said.
• “It’s everyone’s holiday. She should have been able to sit there and enjoy. Even though this incident happened to her, we just want to try and make it right,” said Raymond Oelking, a 610 Stomper.
• “I hope all of us, adults and kids alike, remember that we really have to pay attention to what we say and how we treat others and it makes all the difference in the world,” Muses krewe member Kathleen Parke said.