One morning I was late to work and had to park far away as all the other employees had taken the nearest spaces. As I exited my vehicle, I noticed two white boys across the street, reminiscent of Beavis and Butthead. I knew they were going to say something.
The first time he said something, I didn’t understand it, so I asked him to repeat it.
“I wanna lick your poop chute” and then he did that thing with his tongue that the truck driver in “Thelma & Louise” did.
His cartoonish companion chuckled and maneuvered in a slightly menacing way to demonstrate that he had his bro’s back.
I’m not sure what overcame me, but I feel like my subconscious picked up on several clues that prompted me to take bold action. I noticed the landscaping of 10lb stones covering the ground around their feet. I noticed the sudden lack of traffic on the one way street between us. And I noticed their likely cowardice in the face of unexpected retribution.
Without saying anything, I marched across the street. His demeanor changed to recoil as he meekly inquired, “What are you doing?” I picked a choice stone from the ground, turned and heaved it in his direction, shot put-style. In my mind I thought if I hit him with this large rock, he’s especially dull, so I almost did care if I had, but he dodged it at the last second and took off running up the street yelling, “YOU’RE CRAZY!!”
I responded with, “Come back you coward! Come back and say something else to me!” But he was off to the races. It was funny how quickly he ran.
As I turned around, quite satisfied, to head back to work, I passed his male companion and hawked a loogie in his direction. Contorting his back, he dodged it. By the time I made it to my street a block away, Beavis was STILL running, nearly half a mile away.
This was risky in a lot of ways, I know. But my intuition led me in the right direction. It all happened so quickly and I left feeling quite powerful. Had I not responded in that way, I would have been bothered by it for the rest of the day. To my surprise, my coworkers were quite insightful about how I was bullied and how Beavis and Butthead were trying to intimidate me. Normally people don’t approve of women taking the offensive. What could have been demoralizing turned out to be invigorating.
– Sara F.
Location: Denver, CO
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