I have a very bad habit of going over unfortunate events in my mind after they have happened. And I often find that the perfect response will occur to me long after the time to have made it has passed. As happened yesterday.
I have a car where the hatchback is moved up and down by a push button, rather than having to be lifted or lowered by hand. As I was opening it in the grocery store parking lot yesterday, an elderly and somewhat untidy man was walking by.
"Wouldn't you like it if your husband had a button like that?" he said, jovially.
I was rendered speechless. There is nothing, NOTHING, about me that ought to render me vulnerable to even mild misogynist jokes. I am an old and somewhat untidy lady. wearing a shapeless coat and with short white hair. What is with the 'all women want sex' message to someone like me? I just stared at the poor idiot and he trotted on, chuckling.
About half way home (half an hour drive), it came to me. What I should have said.
"This button also shuts it up. If you have a similar button, allow me to use it."
Oh well.
I do that. Sometimes decades later. lol
ReplyDeleteSigh. Men. Here in the US, I find myself particularly annoyed with all of them at present, just On Principle.
ReplyDeleteThey are lately empowered--they think--to say anything at all to anyone, especially women. I simply say, loudly, to all of them, "Why are you talking to me!?" It usually frightens them into shutting up and scurrying away.