I set out this Labor Day in search of bookshelves. You see, I have somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand books, as well as miscellaneous knick-knacks and pictures and the like that I would like to unpack from the varying boxes they have been sitting in for the last year or so. So off I went to Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Lowes. No luck. Target did not have the dimensions that I need and the other two don't carry bookshelves at all. With the nearest IKEA being 200 miles away in Dallas I fell back on the store we always fall back on here in the South - Wal-Mart.
I had just exited my vehicle and was in the middle of executing the Picard maneuver* when I heard a voice to my right...
"You have huge jugs."
I swear - my hand to a nonexistent god - it took me a moment to realize what he meant. I briefly checked my hands to see if I was perhaps carrying some sort of water-bearing device that I was unaware of. I have never in my life actually heard someone use that phrase. I mean, after I had ascertained my hands were empty of pitchers and canteens I knew what he was talking about, but it was not something that immediately sprang to my mind.
And once it did, I was kind of pissed. Who was this guy, cruising next to me in his pickup while hanging out the window to ogle me, who was he to comment with such blasé about my attributes? It's not like I had left the house in some sort of outfit that screamed "Look at me!" I was wearing jeans and a Flash t-shirt for chrissakes. I looked like what I was, someone who had left the house against my will and did not want to be messed with. And this fucker was messing with me.
Now, I'm sure I had several options at this point. Ordinarily, I would have ignored him. That's my usual reaction when guys are being absolute dickwads. Secondly, I could have screamed at him, tried to give him a piece of my mind. But he was in a truck and I was on foot - there was nothing to stop him from simply driving away at this point. So I did something I rarely do, a middle ground if you will...
(Keep in mind, this entire above thought process only took about two seconds in real time.)
I turned to him and, while playing with the hem of my shirt, said "Would you like a closer look?"
His eyes brightened, I'm not exactly sure what reaction he was hoping for with his pronouncement, but this was certainly not one he had expected. "Yeah!"
I lifted the bottom of my shirt about an inch and leaned forward, "Too bad. You're cute, but not cute enough to get away with a douche pickup line about my tits."
It took him a moment, and in that moment I got to watch the change come over his features. He was good-looking, which made his drive-by verbal molestation of me all the stranger. This wasn't the kind of guy who needed to resort to this kind of thing to get laid.
"Bitch," he said as he turned back into his truck.
"Dumbass," I got out before he drove off.
In retrospect, the whole thing was pretty hilarious, and I giggled about it the entire time I was in the store. Huge jugs? How exactly did he think things were going to pan out? That I might throw myself through his window and offer myself to him in a fit of lust, overcome by his eloquent words of seduction? That I might turn, curtsy, and thank him for his kind thoughts? What was really going through his head in that moment?
I'll leave you with Jerry Seinfeld about what men are really thinking.
(*The Picard Maneuver for those who don't know is when, after having been sitting, you pull the bottom of your shirt down as you stand up to keep it from riding up awkwardly.)
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