# Never hit on anyone who can't run away screaming
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [January 6, 2010, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978 "2010-01-06T23:42:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Auntbeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Auntbeast)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2010, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/1 "2010-01-06T23:42:54Z")
It is a good rule, a simple rule.
Do not hit on anyone who can not run away screaming. This rule does not just apply to romantic advances. It includes any controversial activity you engage in with someone who is paid to be nice to you.
To Wit: A very nice couple came in today and it was my job to wait on them. The man looked a bit bored, and I asked if he wanted a crayon. He laughed and said “Sure!” So I brought him some crayons and some paper.
He drew a picture. A picture he added to as the meal progressed. A picture of a person standing on one side of a chasm and God standing on the other. Every time I went to his table, he continued the preaching and the preaching and the preaching. He asked me where I saw myself in the picture. I responded “I don’t discuss religion or politics at work, Sir” He ended up leaving me the picture and a God pamphlet.
Look, if it is my job to be nice to you, do not use my entrapment as an opportunity to spew dogma, be it religious, racist or political. If I am not free to tell you to shove it up your ass and suffer no repercussions, you should not feel free to assault me with your crap.
FYI, I was having a very hard time last week. And I thought to myself, if anyone was ever going to pray for me, now would be a good time. Do you know who I asked? Not the woman who is constantly preaching, praying and begging God to help her be nice to her customers. Not the woman who writes “Have a blessed day” on every ticket she gives to her customers. I asked the woman who is good and kind and helpful and is very accepting of others and is generous and genuine in her affections, who is a woman of faith and exceedingly tolerant of other religions or lack thereof.
Here is a tip. Be the person that someone like me, a non-believer, would strive to be more like. Don’t be the annoying, preaching twit who backs people into corners with a paid-for smile, the person who inspires prayer by making the person pray “God, get them OFF me, I’m trying to work”
Just ask yourself, if the person you are talking to is not free to say “Fuck you.” Ask yourself if you should be having that conversation.
He did leave me a nice tip though. He should have, I earned it.
---
### Author:  [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/2 "2010-01-07T00:28:00Z")
Google ads for the win… “See what God wants to answer. Insights from the Bible. How to pray.”
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/3 "2010-01-07T00:30:31Z")
My google ad is:
> [@](#):
>
> Giraffe Boards
> Finally, a message board that won’t ruin your life.
> [www.giraffeboards.com](http://www.giraffeboards.com)
---
### Author:  [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/4 "2010-01-07T00:31:45Z")
Heh, mine too, except mine says it won’t give me AIDS.
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### Author:  [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/5 "2010-01-07T00:36:43Z")
> [@Auntbeast](#):
>
> The man looked a bit bored, and I asked if he wanted a crayon. He laughed and said “Sure!”
You were lucky. I think if you had said that to me, I would have assumed you were making fun of me. And I would tip accordingly.
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### Author:  [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/6 "2010-01-07T07:44:38Z")
Lighten up Francis. If a server offered me a crayon and paper I totally would have taken it. Although I would have made a picture with less proselytizing, and more dinosaurs with lazer guns!
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### Author:  [@Tinkertoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tinkertoy)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/7 "2010-01-07T08:31:37Z")
> [@Auntbeast](#):
>
> Look, if it is my job to be nice to you, do not use my entrapment as an opportunity to spew dogma, be it religious, racist or political. If I am not free to tell you to shove it up your ass and suffer no repercussions, you should not feel free to assault me with your crap.
Also if you call a company for tech support don’t try saving the poor person who is trying to help you. I’m trying to help you and get to all the other folks waiting in line. They don’t give a damn if I’m saved they just want their tv fixed before the show they want to watch is on. I don’t come to your job and try to sell you satellite tv don’t come to my job and try to sell me your religion. How can anyone not understand how inappropriate that is?
---
### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/8 "2010-01-07T10:56:34Z")
I try, I really do, it’s just that every once in a long while I get tired of the screaming and the running. ☹
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### Author:  [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/9 "2010-01-07T11:10:02Z")
I figure about nine in ten of the women I hit on run away screaming. It always seems to happen after I mention my prehensile penis. But there’s the one in ten that is intrigued, and that kinda makes up for it.
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### Author:  [@footballisplayedwithyourfeet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/footballisplayedwithyourfeet)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/10 "2010-01-07T12:01:19Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#):
>
> Google ads for the win… “See what God wants to answer. Insights from the Bible. How to pray.”
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> My google ad is:
mine is [scientology.org](http://scientology.org) :dubious:
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### Author:  [@Auntbeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Auntbeast)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/11 "2010-01-07T12:10:47Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#):
>
> I figure about nine in ten of the women I hit on run away screaming. It always seems to happen after I mention my prehensile penis. But there’s the one in ten that is intrigued, and that kinda makes up for it.
I would like to sign up for your newsletter.
Scientology ads here. Guess they didn’t read the masthead. At any rate, every dime they spend on ads is money they don’t spend on lawyers.
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### Author:  [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/12 "2010-01-07T12:22:59Z")
> [@](#):
>
> He ended up leaving me the picture and a God pamphlet.
Let me guess. The God pamplet was your tip, right?
Anyone who works in retail is going to get the occasional religious person who just HAS to share the Good News, and assumes that you are either Saved, or are in desperate need of Saving. These folks also assume that once you hear the Good News, you will Repent and Become Saved right then and there, in the middle of the lunch rush, no matter how many other customers you happen to have. Other folks will have other agendas which they will push on you. Might be another religion, might be the Wonders of Hemp. But yeah, it’s pretty rude to push one’s ideas or advances on someone who can’t slap one upside the head as one so richly deserves.
For the record, in my purse I have a pen that writes in 10 colors and a notebook. This has come in handy more than once, and my pen is the envy of geeks everywhere. If I’m at one of those restaurants with butcher paper on the tables and the server writes his or her name on the paper in crayon, and leaves the crayon, then I’m quite likely to doodle on the paper. After all, they’re going to throw the paper away after I leave anyway.
Note to self: have lunch at Zio’s today.
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### Author:  [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/13 "2010-01-07T12:31:30Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#):
>
> I figure about nine in ten of the women I hit on run away screaming. It always seems to happen after I mention my prehensile penis. But there’s the one in ten that is intrigued, and that kinda makes up for it.
Dude, that’s not your penis, that’s your tail. Get over yourself.
Sincerely,
The Elephant.
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/14 "2010-01-07T13:01:23Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#):
>
> Let me guess. The God pamplet was your tip, right?
> [@Auntbeast](#):
>
> He did leave me a nice tip though. He should have, I earned it.
You “earned it” by providing good, quick, efficient service? Outstanding.
Or you “earned it” by being forced to spend 1.8 seconds of every visit to his table looking at a religious picture done by crayon? I’d say that’s easy work.
I’ve waited tables. I’ve been proselytized and propositioned while doing so. And with all due respect to the agony this crayon drawing apparently brought you, I have to say that unless there’s an aspect of the experience you haven’t fully described, I’m thinking it wasn’t a particularly onerous event to endure. I’ve been given Chick-type tracts instead of tips, and once I was offered a hotel room key and a chance to collect my “tip” there by a woman old enough to be my mother who had been on a steady diet of double Tanqueray martinis and Salem Lights since she got there.
(Although as I write that, I realize she was probably in her late forties / early fifties, about my age now. Wow.)
Anyway, all due respect to your sensibilities when confront with a crayoned, canyoned Deity, but your reaction seems to me a tad over-sensitive.
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### Author:  [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/15 "2010-01-07T13:42:49Z")
> [@ShibbOleth](#):
>
> Dude, that’s not your penis, that’s your tail. Get over yourself.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> The Elephant.
Elephant, schmelephant. I hear a **Giraffe** ’s tongue is 18 inches long and prehensile.
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### Author:  [@Dante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/16 "2010-01-07T13:47:54Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> I’ve waited tables. I’ve been proselytized and propositioned while doing so. And with all due respect to the agony this crayon drawing apparently brought you, I have to say that unless there’s an aspect of the experience you haven’t fully described, I’m thinking it wasn’t a particularly onerous event to endure.
To be fair, Auntbeast did say:
> [@Auntbeast](#):
>
> Every time I went to his table, he continued the preaching and the preaching and the preaching.
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/17 "2010-01-07T14:42:27Z")
> [@Dante](#):
>
> To be fair, Auntbeast did say:
Yeah, I hear you…
Still a far cry from, “You’re just a great waiter… what else are you good at, hon?”
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### Author:  [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/18 "2010-01-07T14:55:25Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> Still a far cry from, “You’re just a great waiter… what else are you good at, hon?”
I much prefered the “what time do you get off and where are we going” lines to “do you have a personal relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ.”
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### Author:  [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/19 "2010-01-07T15:26:35Z")
> [@EvilTOJ](#):
>
> Lighten up Francis.
No tip for you!
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### Author:  [@fubbleskag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fubbleskag)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2010, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-hit-on-anyone-who-cant-run-away-screaming/523978/20 "2010-01-07T15:43:03Z")
**Bricker** thinks having an old drunk woman offer herself to you is worse than being preached at, so his opinion in this thread is obviously worthless.
That said, this was a pretty tame pitting - have TPTB tightened the leash that much while I was away?
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