On Saturday, whilst at the Springvale markets doing the weekly fruit and veg shop with mother, I came close to walloping the second person (which would’ve been the second male) in my adult life.

I should probably start from the beginning in order to explain the circumstances. If you’ve ever been to a market dominated by little Asian women, you’ll know how terrifying they are - they will elbow and shove you out of the way without an iota of mercy, blindly drag their little shopping carts over your feet, and generally make you terrified of the older generation.

Now that I’ve drawn you a picture of what the Springvale markets are like, is it any wonder that going there puts me in an absolutely wretched mood? (Mind you, the drive there isn’t exactly pleasant, way too many crazy drivers. The trip before this, I saw two accidents happen before my eyes, one on the way there and one on the way back!) My mother knows that while we’re at the markets, motherly pestering needs to be kept to an absolute minimum to prevent my brows from fusing together with annoyance and I generally walk around with sunglasses and as cold and unfriendly a look as I can maintain in order to make people keep their distance. Normally this works a treat, but this past Friday, my usual tactics failed me miserably.

Hanging outside the fish market section and waiting for my mother, I was lost in my thoughts when I noticed that a short, graying bespectacled gentleman was standing next to me and grinning goofily at me. Feeling genuinely creeped out, I shot him the most withering look possible, which he met with an even bigger smile and started talking to me:

Weird dude: “You look bored!”

Me: (raising an eyebrow) “Oh really? Well, I am.”

Weird dude: (bearing such a big grin I swear his cheeks are about to tear) “Ah well, markets can be like that!”

Me: (silence, staring at him without blinking)

Weird dude: (shuffles off)

I watched him enter the markets with an empty plastic bag in hand, wandering around and around aimlessly, checking out the women and barely throwing a glance at the produce, but it took a few minutes for the realization to hit me that he was trawling for women in a fish market!!!

There is something so unbelievably WRONG about that. So unbelievably wrong and icky and EWWW.

Needless to say that I was about as far from impressed as I could get, and for fear that the look of disgust on my face would become a permanent fixture (so strong was my disgust), I tore my eyes away to forcibly stop myself glaring daggers at him, and began to occupy myself with picking the crust off the end of the baguette I’d just purchased.

Falling back into the recesses of my mind and chewing idly on a piece of crust, I was rudely jolted back to earth when creepy dude stuck his face in mine with a grin. I stared at him in disbelief, wondering what the fuck could POSSIBLY be running through his head whilst imagining whacking him about the head with my baguette.

Weird dude: “How’s the baguette?”

Me: (death glare) “Fine”

Weird dude: “It looks good”

Me: (thinking ‘well, I’m not going to offer you any so fuck off!!’, and continuing to stare)

Weird dude: (shuffles off again)

Being disturbed by an individual once is more than enough to offend my sensibilities, but twice? I was fuming and envisioning many tortures for his wretched self, but practiced my ‘calming down’ exercises (I learnt them as a teen, as I had an absolutely vicious temper back them) and forced myself to concentrate on the baguette again.

Okay, so I may have been imagining battering him to within an inch of his life with it, but the baguette was more the focus than the creepy dude.

Thankfully, mother appeared with wrapped snapper in hand, and I couldn’t stop myself from rattling off a string of rather horrid expletives in Korean, almost spitting my words with disgust as I vented about the creepy dude to her. She laughed and said that it was nothing to get myself worked up over and led me over to a stand of cucumbers, which she began to carefully pick through, trying to find the perfect ones to turn into kimchi. I watched her wander off with a bag of acceptable cukes to the counter when I felt someone suddenly grab my &*($#%()&$_^*&*(@# elbow, and turned to see weird dude grinning at me.

Completely losing the plot, I grabbed my arm back and wound it back to slug him one in the face, but before I could throw the fist, he said “Smile more - they’re free”, and disappeared into the crowd.

Four days after the event, and thinking about it still pisses me off. Whilst I’m quite a touchy-feely person, nothing pisses me off more than strangers deliberately grabbing or touching me. The last chap to receive a blow from me was a guy I caught feeling me up on the tram - I wanted to punch him in the head but shock and not really knowing what I was doing (it was instinctive rather than a deliberate action) meant the punch landed square between the shoulderblades, followed by my swearing up a storm and yelling myself blue in the face at him. I do not care how good or innocent your intentions may be, if I do not know you and have shown no inclinations towards friendliness to you, do not lay your stinking, sweaty paws on my person.

And apart from that - I will smile when I damn well want to smile. Who the FUCK are you to be telling me to ’smile more’?! Is it any of your business whether I’m smiling or not? The short answer is NO.

In summation:

1. If someone looks pissed off and unapproachable, give them wide berth - they most likely do NOT want to talk to you.

2. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT deliberately touch or grab a stranger, especially if you’re creepy and you’re someone who confuses being suave with being a sleazy douchebag.

3. Just because you’re in a good mood, it doesn’t mean that I am or that I have to be. I’m sorry if I’m harshing your buzz, but get the fuck over it. Telling people to “smile more” is probably going to just irritate them and make them want to knock your teeth out.

4. Unless you know me well, JUST DO NOT FUCKIN’ TOUCH ME.

Any readers got stories of inappropriate stranger behaviour to share? Come, vent with me!

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 10:39 pm and is filed under Dear Diary, Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.