I was walking down the street one day and as I passed them, this asshole turned to his friend and said, “Is that a guy or a girl?” I turned and shouted, “Fuck you!” That is one of two times I have use that phase in anger, and the only time I’ve said it to a stranger. Who the hell did he think he was?
Hey Straight Dopers! “Long time listener, first time caller…”
Yeah, First Post!
Anyway, here’s my rude story:
I’m getting married to ** LilShieste ** this summer, so I was at one of those hideously hoakey wedding fairs. Two seperate individuals, both trying to sell me their wedding related services, asked me the same rude question in utter seriousness. It, in fact, was the FIRST thing out of their mouths. It wasn’t “hi, how are you?” It was: “Is this your first wedding?”
Now, I have two problems with this. One, it’s just a stupid question to ask a soon to be bride, and it’s not my potential DJ’s business if I’ve had ten husbands. Second, I’m 21, and pretty much look like it, or maybe a touch younger. How likely is it I was married before!?
When both my sister and I were students I was introduced to a friend of my sisters. This girl looked at me, said hello and then, “but you can’t be <insert sister’s name here> she’s so pretty”.
I just laughed, it was such an awful thing to say, and so obviously a case of unpremeditated foot in mouth, but it must have stung because I remember it twenty-odd years later.
Not an insult to me, but a female customer I was talking to at work whose arms were covered with tatoos. Another customer came up to ask me a question. After she got her answer she looked at my friend’s arm with interest, then CARESSED her arm and said, “I hope you don’t get cancer”, and she walked out the door. We were flabbergasted. Of course right after she left I came up with the reply of pinching that woman’s nipple and saying “I hope YOU don’t get cancer either”.
Years ago, I was making my way through a very crowded gay bar when I heard somebody making a high-pitched oooOooo sound. I turned to see what was up and these two guys were staring at me with seemingly friendly interest, so I smiled in a friendly way back. Then they said, “A pro!” and not knowing what they meant I made the :dubious: face and kept on going. Apparently they thought I was a guy in drag or something. I don’t think of it so much as an insult as I do ignorance that women can actually be big and tall (5’10"), but it still gets to me sometimes.
I was working in a lumber yard, and this guy stands 20 feet away, and whistles at me to get my attention. I looked at him and ignored him. He does it again. I look at him and ignore him.
He comes over to me, and says, “Didn’t you hear me?”.
“Yes, I did,” I replied, " but I figured you were whistling for your dog."
A guy was in looking for an adapter to plug a 30amp commercial deep fryer into a regular wall socket. I explained to him that that wasn’t possible, since his wall socket only supplied 15 amps, and that he would have to install a dedicated 30 outlet for his deep fryer to work.
His reply, “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, asshole.”
Oh, the joys of retail. And these were the real mild ones.
Christmas Eve, I go to the supermarket for a few last minute items for dinner. Get in the (long) line and wait. After a couple of minutes two women get in line behind me. They are discussing some popcorn that is being sold in fancy tins which it so happens are on the end cap about 3 feet from where I am standing. I take one step out of line (really I placed one foot forward, and leaned) so that I could spin the tin to read the price, and the lady behind me wakes up and starts screaming at me that I cut into line. WTF? I explained that I had been standing there for at least 5 minutes, and was there when she walked up. She would have none of this and kept screaming at me. I told her that I wasn’t going to yell back on Christmas Eve, and I went back to the end of the line.
I broke my foot one time, and was on crutches. Very difficult, and not fun to walk with. I am in a parking lot and there is a car in front of me blocking about 1/2 of a handicapped space (I had a placard) No driver and two guys standing there talking about something. I beep my horn and point to the space, my placard, and the car. One of the drivers storms over to my window and says, “Can’t you see that we are discussing something important here?”
No I reply I can’t see that, I need to get into that handicapped space that I am entitled to.
He tells me that they have just had an accident (one guy backing out, hit the guy driving by) and “Fuck off”
So I take the next closest space about 100 yards away. I clump over to this asshole, and get right into his face where I told him the following
“If there is a God in heaven then sometime you will be on crutches and someone will do to you what you just did to me. When that happens I hope that you recall this day, and remember what an asshole you are.”
The guy got really pissed; I thought that he was going to swing on me. I was getting ready to clock him with my crutches, but he backed down.
As we were walking away my 151/2 old asked me a question. Not being one to leave good enough alone, I turned and yelled the following
“Hey asshole, my kid is learning to drive, and just asked me a question that I don’t know how to answer. Maybe you can answer it for him. How do you get into an accident when you are parked?”
The look on his face at that point made the whole thing worthwhile.
One time years ago, I was walking along a street in downtown Minneapolis and this kid, a young teen, who was standing around with a bunch of his friends just walked up to me and said “You know you’re one of the ugliest looking guys I’ve ever seen.”
I didn’t say anything or react in any way, I just kept walking.
When I first moved to California, I was unaware of a few local customs (ahem). People frown on j-walking out here. People also frown on smoking out here. While walking to the grocery store, I j-walked while smoking. A mother and child were waiting to cross on the other side of the street. She saw me coming and said to her son, “See!! That’s what will happen to you if you don’t do your homework!” Great. Now I’m the bogeyman.
My reason for going to the store was simple: I was out of vodka. I walked in, grabbed a large bottle, and walked to the checkout. The cashier looks at the bottle, looks at me, and says, “Are you sure you can pay for this, sir?” Now, I am not a snappy dresser by any means, and I am not what you might call clean shaven, but I don’t think I looked homeless. Luckily I had just gone to the ATM and was able to slap down a $100 dollar bill and reply, “Are you sure you can break this?” Preppie little bastard.
All this happened within 10 minutes, and on my second day in CA. I could go on, but I’m already too worked up about it. grrrr.
My brother used to live with me. He is an archaeologist and was working in the field every day. As you might imagine, he didn’t get especially dressed up to go dig in the dirt. Also he carried all his stuff in a backpack. Also he had a beard at the time.
None of which is any reason for our new next door neighbor to yell from her stoop as he was walking past her house to meet the van that took him to the site “Hey! Do you live around here?” When he indicated the house next to hers (where he had been living since before hers had been built), she yelled “OH! I thought you were homeless!”
And then there was the time I was waiting tables. One of my customers, an older man, apropos of nothing, halfway throught the meal asked me “So are you a full-time mother and a part-time waitress or a full-time waitress and a part-time mother?” I told him I didn’t have any children, which was true, but it seemed the height of rudeness to imply that a mother would be “part-time” simply because she had a job (waiting on his sorry ass no less)
My wife had ear surgery about 10 years ago. She was in the recovery room, I was sitting next to her holding her hand. Because of the surgery, she had a large bandage around her head and she had her hair in a pony tail. It made it look like she had no hair. An older guy came in to wait for his wife. She was rolled in a few minutes later. I then heard him tell her to tell the nurse she was ready to go, he did not like being in a room with fags. He spoke in a regular voice, he did not try to hide it. I’ll admit my wife did not look ravishing at the moment but who does after having their ear almost cut off and then sewed back on again. A bit later a nurse came in and asked my wife “Marsha, would you like something to drink?” My wife shook her head yes and the other woman said yes, she would like something to drink. Yep, the old guys wife was named Marsha too. We were in the recovery room another 10 minutes and neither of them would look at us.
um, nooooo…
“You’d look so pretty if you’d only wear a little make-up.”
To which I responded, “I AM wearing make-up.”
Shesh.
I drove into a dam construction site during a summer internship to pick up some concrete cylinders. It was really muddy that day and I didn’t want to risk getting the truck stuck, so I parked away from the edges of the compacted dirt. Unfortunately, this meant that I partially blocked the main path in and out, although it was only blocked for a space of less than ten minutes as I loaded up the truck.
A worker drove up in a caterpillar and needed to get past. I yelled that I would move, no problem and headed toward the truck cab. His response was “No, finish what you’re doing. It’s been a long time since I saw a woman actually doing work.”
Too shocked to believe he actually said that, I loaded up the last few cylinders and drove out as quickly as I could.
*I’d like to note, however, that this was completely atypical of my whole experience in construction-type work. I have never before or since run into sexist and rude coworkers.
Hahaha, that was a good one Magick. Where do you come up with this stuff?
I once was moving across country and stopped in some obscure place in western Maryland for the night. It was dinnertime, I was exhausted from the all-day drive and looking for some take-out food to bring back to the motel. I walked into a restaurant which had a combination bar/reception/take-out window area, and an employee (he would have qualified as the maitre d’ if this joint hadn’t been several rungs below the sort of restaurant that justifies such a title) came up to me with a look of disdain on his face. I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and probably looked a little ragged from the day’s drive, and I got looked up and down by this character with an expression that clearly said “How dare a lowlife like you even think of eating in our Fine Establishment?”
I should have walked at that point, but it was late, I was hungry -and after I explained that I wanted take-out he miraculously decided they could accept my money, so I got the food and left.
I’ve found it hard to have positive thoughts about Maryland since then.
I know the OP wants strangers, but the weirdest and strangest thing said to me was by my dear (cough) sweet (hack) grammy (gag).
Now, I rarely saw the woman (rarer now, since she’s dead). But you could always count on her obese ass finding her way to our house for the holidays. Always a pleasant way to spend Christmas with a bitter, angry vindictive old woman who’s only pleasure in life seemed to come at the cost of someone else’s pain.
My grandmother was very overweight. Obesity is what finally killed her. She was so fat, in fact, that it seemed the only way to get through her day was to make other people feel badly about themselves. That seemed to be her joy.
I hadn’t seen her for over a year. It’s Christmas, the family is all gathered around, I come in from out of town, and the first thing that she says after I hug her and say “hello!”, is “Boy, Fish! You are FAT!” (the truth is that I HAD gained a little weight. So sue me. The last thing I want on Christmas is a reminder that I’ve put on pounds.)
The whole room went silent, and everyone looked at me, like I had farted in church… I looked right at her and said “Merry Christmas to you too, Grammy.” The room broke up. Every year, someone still brings up the story. It was the first time EVER that anyone in the family ever stood up to the old bag. She brooded for the rest of the evening and went home. I’ve retained semi-pop star status at home holiday gatherings ever since.
Grammy… where ever you ended up, I hope you found a gym. And a personality. And if neither of these things were available, I hope earplugs were handed out to everyone…
- An acquaintance of my then boyfriend comes into the kitchen, looks at me, and says “I can’t bear to be in the same room as you” and walks out. I’d never met this guy before, we hadn’t even been introduced.
- I was on a course. A woman turns to me and says “Do you like being a failure?”
These incidents took place years ago, but I still don’t know what provoked them. Also, these sort of remarks are so outrageous that you tend to be totally stunned - by the time you’ve thought of a suitable riposte (or got your machete out), it’s too late.
Also I’ve had a few more standard bitchy remarks, such as: “This photo makes you look quite nice”, or “I see you’re like me and don’t care about tidiness” (it WAS tidy) .It’s all in the phrasing.
I’m fat - have been all my life. It’s not a problem for me or my husband, but some strangers just really have to “help” me.
I’ve had people walk up and give me diet literature on the street. I’ve been buying groceries when someone will come up, check out my buggy, and ask “do you really think you should be buying CHEESE?” Hey, skippy it’s my buggy! Bite me.
I work for an state environmental agency. As I was preparing to inspect a facility, the manager of the site, whom I had never met before, was trying to convince me that I needed to have my stomach stapled. (Nothing against those who have done this, it’s just not for me) I have to say that he got a VERY bad evaluation that day.
But best of all, while at college, I went to a bar with some friends. This guy comes up and starts flirting and buying me drinks… Then he looks deep in my eyes and says “Baby, I’d like to slap your leg and ride the waves in.” :rolleyes: :eek:
Two things:
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I may have mentioned this in another thread, but when I was younger, people used to tell me that I looked like Jennifer Grey from Dirty Dancing - BEFORE she got her plastic surgery! Great, so I’m a before picture.
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I was walking in the supermarket with my fiancee and I was wearing some boots with heels when a man stopped my fiancee, pointed at me and said, “How can someone who looks that light walk like she’s so heavy?” Ok, he didn’t insult my weight, but who the heck asks something like that, especially to someone who is clearly my significant other??
When I was 22 I had my first child. I looked about 16 years old. I was on an airplane heading for New York with my newborn daughter. This woman sits next to me and places the largest Bible I have ever seen in my life on her lap. Her husband sits next to her.
She proceeds to stare at me for about 5 minutes when I finally asked if I could help her with something. She asked if that was my child (I was breastfeeding - duh) I said yes. She said you look very young, are you a prostitute who got pregnant?
I was so flabbergasted I stopped for minute, and I said why do you ask? Your husband interested? She shut up after that.
Haarrrrruummph- Bible thumpers.