This afternoon I went to purchase a hip scarf for my belly dancing class (I just started a couple of weeks ago - ALK has done it for years, dragged me to a class and I loved it).
I walked into the shop and perused their wares. I found a pretty red scarf with silver beads & coins. After looking around some more, waiting for the cashier to be almost done with her customer, I walked up to the till to wait. The fellow in front of me was buying a ton of purses (probably to resell). He turned around and started talking to me and this is the ludicrous conversation that followed:
Him: "So, you've been in here all this time and you haven't said hello to me."
Me: "Uh. Hello." (thinking: oh God, please stop already and let me go about my business in peace. Why do men think this is some clever line? I wish I had said something like "oh, sorry, I didn't hear you say hello to me first.")
Him: "Where are you from?"
Me: *sigh* "I'm from England, my parents are of Caribbean descent."
Him: "I'm from Nigeria. But then you knew that already."
Me: (??) "Uh, no, I didn't know that." (thinking: buddy, how the hell am I supposed to know where you're from??)
Him: "Are you single?"
Me: (Oh Christ! Here we go. This guy's old enough to be my father) "No."
I'm not proud of that little white lie but I hoped to make him stop leering at me.
Him: "Do you have kids?"
Me: "Yes, I have a daughter."
Now, I'm not sure why it came out like that. I think I was desperate to make him leave me alone so I could just purchase my scarf and get the hell out. Some muttering between the guy and the cashier about kids prompted me to add:
Me: "I'm adopting from Ethiopia." I guess I didn't want them to think I already had a child and then have the guy ask even more questions that I would have to keep lying about.
Cashier: "That's great!"
The Twat: "Why don't you just have your own?"
Me (Stunned silence for a second, thinking: WTF buddy??) "That's a rather personal question, isn't it?"
I was proud of that response.
I think the cashier was as shocked by that question as I was and felt a little embarrassed about his rudeness.
The Twat: "Yes it is but I'm not afraid to ask." (or something equally stupid & arrogant like that)
Me: (muttered something about how not everyone can have children.)
By this point, I was actually feeling really upset by the whole conversation & felt tears pricking at my eyes. And infertility is not the reason I am adopting. If it had been, I probably would have burst into tears by then or decked the guy. Or both. Anyway, I think the twat could see I was getting upset by this point, but he kept yabbering away anyway.
The Twat: some thing about "The Lord doesn't bless everyone with children but you should try to have your own."
Then he went on about his 11 kids and how his brother has 8 and his other brother only has 1 but he can borrow one of his, ha ha ha.
Yes, ho ho ho, we all chuckled over that joke. But I was pretty silent throughout most of this assault. I think part of me wanted him to understand that he was prying and activities within my womb are none of his damn business. Also, I was quite gobsmacked and didn't know what to say.
Finally he left and I brought my scarf. And it was on sale 25% off so I felt the preceding horror was worth the deal.
But dayum! You never know when someone is going to get right up your nose, do you? It had been such a nice, productive, sunny day up to that point.
I stopped at the liquor store on the way home.
