It helps to have a pathological indifference to being embarassed in public and also a pathological hatred of being abused.
Someone once came up behind me and grabbed my boobs. I gave him a crack to the ribs with my elbow that put him down without even thinking about it.
I’m getting better with this. Things that would have made me cringe in the past don’t faze me as much; I’m aware that I am an eccentric goof and it’s OK now.
I want to hear how it goes talking to the store, too. You definitely did the right thing!
It’s easy to say, “You should do X, Y, Z,” or even tell yourself that you know what you would do in such a situation, but it’s actually a lot harder when it happens. I always thought I was a badass lactivist, but when someone approached me and asked me not to nurse my baby where I was, I felt like crying. Add in the weirdness dimension of this, and someone actually (yech) touching you, and I can totally see your mind going in all kinds of weird directions. Like, “I *must *have misinterpreted this, because no one would actually do something so crazy.”
(As for bra storage, I don’t usually keep currency in there, but I find it’s the best place to clip my mp3 player when I work out.)
Hitting them in the face is good. Hitting them anywhere is good, in fact. They are COUNTING on their victims to just be horrified and not do anything.
Healthy Choice meals on sale for $1.88 each? That’s a great price! Is the sale still going on?
Oh, and great job with the perv!
Thank you! I came in to this thread to post the same thing. We had a can of Lysol at the end of the teller line, and we used it regularly. That said, I use a small fabric wallet thing that I keep in my bra sometimes. Unfortunately, I have such a poor memory that I forget to get it out before I appear in the checkout line, thereby insuring an uncomfortable moment for me while I dig it out.
Tesseract, I love that you threw the frozen dinner at him. Whatta perv.
Sing it. I have had this same reaction to being homophobically harassed, and that, coupled with a fear response, can cause me to freeze up rather than unleash the torrent of righteous fury I carefully cultivate for just such occasions. And then you have all the self-questioning and self-doubt ON TOP of how horrible you feel from the attack itself. It’s a really gross way for them to hurt you twice over. I really sympathize.
Sorry for taking so long to update this. I got very busy. I think the day after my last post I went back to the grocery store. It was a very unsatisfying experience. The manager was a woman who seemed somewhat junior and/or not overly bright. As I began to tell her my story, another seemingly-junior manager whose name tag said Front End Manager began listening. As I finished the story, the not-so-bright one says, “This was someone who works here?” Um. Front End Manager and I both say, “No! A customer!” (So I think listening comprehension was to blame, not my telling of the story…) Anyway, I’m thinking, “If that was someone who worked here, you’d be talking to my lawyer, sweetie…” OK, maybe I wouldn’t sue them. But come on.
In any case, the manager was so relieved, she basically seemed not to care at all once she realized it was a customer. I would assume she would say, at least, “Oh thank you for telling us.”* Or that she would write something down. No. She says, “Oh, you should have told a manager.” And the Front End manager nods. “Yeah, you should have.” OK. Well, yeah. But I told the checker and the bagger, and they were the only people in sight, plus there was a huge line of customers. So I assumed there was no manager on duty. Somewhat confusingly the Front End manager says, “I remember you – I saw you telling the checker about it.” Hmmm. I don’t remember seeing her, but she was probably behind this counter that’s at the front and side of the store. If she is a manager, and she remembers me telling the checker…then…why didn’t she do whatever this mythical manager would have done if I had told him/her? I wanted to ask this and decided that there was little point.
Oh, there are not any cameras in that aisle, either. So. I suppose I could go back and tell a different manager – one who will care more. I have to do an errand close to a police station next week so I will probably stop in and just let them know and see if they have heard of this guy already. So. There’s the update. Thanks for all the advice, commiseration, et cetera.
*IAAL, so I understand her not wanting to say anything that might be construed as admitting liability, like, “I am so sorry that happened to you in our store,” but I don’t think she was thinking that far ahead. I think she was just clueless.
I don’t know how I missed this thread before. But I’m just coming in and reading this after passing my green belt test in karate, and now I’m thinking about how I would have reacted.
We’re told our voice is our best weapon. When the OP turned around and yelled at him, then wacked him with the frozen dinner, that was probably the best reaction she could have had, considering a child was nearby. Me, I like to think I would have back kicked him in the face.
Please do go to the cops. And given the lukewarm reaction of the store, I’d never shop there again. But it could be low level management problems, try to go higher.
You have to roll it first.
If this store is a chain, contact the headquarters or a regional manager. Obviously, the store managers aren’t competent or just don’t care. By not doing anything about it, they’re contributing to the lack of security in the store. Go to the police and maybe have the police visit the store.
You might even want to get a lawyer to get a subpoena for all of the video surveillance at the store. If you can ID the guy on the surveillance tapes, there’s a greater chance that he’ll get caught.
Times like this it would be good to live in the old west ( or a similar non-governed place) and just be able to kill someone that did something like this (see The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for example)l.
Gahh, what a perv! you performed well though, although personally, I would have liked to see you open a can of whoop-gluteus-maximus on the perv and crush him like a bug
perhaps carrying a personal defense blade would be useful, imagine his expression if you deployed This little blade, you wouldn’t have to do more than snap it open, those gleaming, toothy serrations and wickedly curved Reverse S blade would send him a simple, unsubtle message…
GET…OUT!!
Definitely go to the management/owners and the cops, and I concur with finding a new store, due to their craptacular response to your complaint
Never mind that. What I want to know is - did they make exact change?
And here we just thought you were cold. 
Good thinking, Tesseract! I’d have frozen in place and probably peed my pants.
food fetish imho, probably wanted peanut butter spread on, well not a high carbohydrate item like bread.
SCREAM ---->
I’m on my period, please stop!, or I have the AIDS virus. or…
Sounds like she was confused because she didn’t understand why you were telling her the story if it wasn’t about an employee. And frankly, I don’t either. What the hell do you expect them to do? As they rightly pointed out, if you went and told a manager at the time they might have been able to tell the guy to back off, but now that you’re coming in days after the fact to re-tell it, you’re just wasting their time.
Nobody is going to “care more” about this than you do. So you had a creepy and reasonably amusing incident happen to you in a grocery store. Time to move on.
Literally, you are correct. But having worked the public service desk, if I were unlucky enough to be managing a grocery store, I’d want to keep my customer happy. While asking her to tell someone immediately should it happen again, I’d make the employees aware that it happened so that they could keep an eye out. I’d ask my employers to install cameras at the very least. I’m sure that someone who ran a store would know other actions to take.
Yeah but that would require companies to have policies of “customer service”. Those have long since gone out of fashion, as they just aren’t cost effective. Not to mention installing an expensive security system all because a guy touched some lady’s leg, and in this economy? I’m not holding my breath.