A few days ago, the sister of a good friend came to visit. She has four children (who were not with her), and one of them is quite autistic. He does have a fascination (I guess it's really an obsession): hubcaps. He collects them, talks about them, endlessly comments on the hubcaps on other people's cars, and so on.

Before the sister left the area, I made her this balloon hubcap to take back to her son. As soon as he saw it, he reportedly said to her, "That's an 8-lug hubcap!"

It's based on Bonnie Davis's "Red and Yellow Dahlia, Version One" from her collection "The Flower Garden." If I had had more experience with this model (which is kind of tricky), I might've doublestuffed the inner silver 260s with black 160s to give them a whole different metallic feel.

That was a nice story to read and how it came about, so when the hubcap goes down will things be OK?

That's a great question, and one that I didn't even think to ask at the time. (And the boy's mom didn't bring it up...)

I'm going to contact her and ask her how he's doing with it. I'm sure it's already looking a little sad.

Thank you! That's something I'll remember to ask about from now on when dealing with this particular affliction.