I’m the Slut in the Grocery Store

I am your sexy eye candy.

I’m only here for you to stare at, to whistle at, to mumble comments under your breathe like some creepy mustached pervert.

This is obviously what I want.

This is why I came here.

I got up this morning and chose clothing based solely on how I thought you would react.

I was looking for a reaction.

To the guy I met in the grocery store today…is this what you think of me? Because when I walked past you, toting my little shopping basket, you paused in the aisle. Your eyes did an exaggerated roving gesture, full head tilt and all, from my feet to my chest and back down. You never even made eye contact with me.

“Damn that looks good,” you said.

That?

That as in my dress, because you can’t have it. It won’t fit you and it really isn’t your color, dude.

Or that as in my body, because that’s not some thing that you get to just give your approval of, claim like an image you post on Facebook of some car/shirt/pair of shoes/house that you want. My body doesn’t go in that list.

But it’s okay, because I ignored you. I said nothing and kept right on walking.

I went and got the bread I came there for.

Except I met you in the line and you were saying it again.

“That looks good.”

And I ignored you.

And then you said, “Bitch.”

Now, because I ignored you…because I didn’t turn around and give you the green-light to go ahead with your degrading attempt at flirting…I’m a bitch.

So now I’m a bitch who came to the grocery store dressed up simply to tease you into thinking you had a chance, because that’s obviously the only reason I would have for coming to the grocery store and I just knew you’d be here.

I must be a tease as well.

That’s me: the slutty, bitch, dick-tease at the grocery store.

You have said less than ten words to me, but they were powerful enough to put me in my place, to make me feel tiny, insignificant…wrong.

So when I turn and blast you. When I growl out, “Just shut up.” When I practically run to my car and lock the doors and head back home to change my clothing, because I don’t want to go to my children’s school in a dress anymore. When I feel less pretty and wipe off my lipstick, because I worry it makes me look like a slut…

Just know that all you had to say was, “You look nice today.”

And I would have smiled.

And I wouldn’t have been a bitch and you wouldn’t have altered my day in such a negative way.

I would have smiled.

I would have said, “Thank you.”

 Herstory Lesson: Don’t let someone else’s ignorance mess with your identity…or your day.