OneSaneVoice

Every woman has a story like this.  Often more than one.  It is a sad fact of life and has little to do with looks, intelligence, or any other facet of a woman’s composition.  It has to do with the simple fact that she’s female and some men are predators.  I used to have my antenna up more vigilantly, but that was before I considered myself aged out of this sort of harrowing bullshit.  Apparently, I’m still in it.

Husband and I just changed car insurers so we each had to visit an authorized service station to have pictures of our vehicle taken and the required paperwork completed.  I called to make an appointment at the station closest to our home, but when I got there the guy who took the pictures was out, so I scanned the list and picked one in the next town a few miles away.  I would be driving in that direction to see Faith, my fitness trainer, and the guy on the phone said to come right over.

It was no surprise that I was the only woman in the shop.  It was a gas station.  One man took pictures of my car and then handed the clipboard to another fellow who gave me a long look and a smile.  He was in his late forties to early fifties and neatly dressed in street attire, not a uniform or work clothes.  I was wearing baggy, non-revealing gym clothes, but something about the way he looked at me made me feel scantily clad.  He looked at the paperwork and said, “Are you married?”  I said, “Yes, the policy is in both our names, but this is the paperwork for my car.”  He looked back down at the clipboard and said, “Too bad.  I thought we’d have some fun.”

At first, I wasn’t certain what he said.  He had a thick accent and he was grinning while he spoke.  Deciding to toss it off, I said, “No, there won’t be any fun.”  Glancing over at him, I could see he was copying the information from my insurance card v-e-r-y  s-l-o-w-l-y.  I went to open the door to go outside and he said, “Oh, no, you can’t leave.  I have to ask you questions.”  I asked him what kind of questions.  He fixed me with his eyes and said, “Like do you mind living so close to an elementary school?”  I instantly felt nauseous.  He knew exactly where my house was, and this station wasn’t even in my town.  I didn’t acknowledge his question so he pretended not to understand my request to stick to the task at hand.  I suddenly realized I was being sexually harassed at the very least, and menaced at most.  My instinct was to grab my paperwork out of his hand and just leave, but he already knew my address and I hesitated to provoke him.  I opened the door and walked outside to clear my head.

What to do.  I had never been to this station before.  Looking around, I couldn’t see who the owner might be or if he was even present.  And if I located him, what kind of conversation would we be having?  He said, she said.  What if he was a relative of the owner?  WHAT IF HE WAS THE OWNER?  As thoughts raced through my head, the asshole with the clipboard came up next to me by my car.  “The pretty ones are always married,” he muttered.  I decided to ignore his remark and go on the offense.  “I really need to be on my way,” I said, “so let’s wrap this up.”  Now he was angry.  I had rejected his hostile flirting.  He threw his hands up and said, “If you’re in such a hurry you should have made an appointment.”  I told him I did.  This was my appointment.  He started ranting about how I was lucky they were doing this for me since most stations don’t handle insurance inspections because they don’t get paid for it, blah blah.  I said, “Then don’t do it,” and I reached for the clipboard.  Suddenly he went all business and asked the questions he was supposed to ask about the mileage and alarm system, etc.  I signed it, took my copy, and left.

All the way to Faith’s, thoughts of how else I could have handled this incident crowded my head.  It wasn’t quite like the time on a commuter bus in my twenties when I felt the older man sitting next to me slip his hand into my crotch beneath the coat I had folded on my lap.  Feeling the same wave of nausea and fury then as I did now, I stood up and slapped his shoulder before leaving the seat.  To this day, I regret not aiming for his face.

Faith, a trained kickboxer, listened attentively to my story as I warmed up on the elliptical.  I asked her what she would have done in my situation.  She thought a moment and said, “The same thing you did.  Just walk away.  I would want to take this creep down just like you.  But he would deny anything I said or explain it away and make me out to be the crazy bitch.  Also, if he knew where my house was, it would be risky to take chances.  Let it go.”  She was right.  So I did forty bicep curls at the next weight level to help it along.

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