Fuck you, asshole.
So I had a lot of laundry to do. I’ve been slacking, and it’s been building up for a month. I decided to go to a laundromat to get it done in 2 hours instead of 8 if I had done it in the laundry room at my apartment.
It’s late, after midnight, and the laundromat’s empty. Good, I can get a little reading done while I’m waiting. After loading the 6 or 7 loads into washers, I go outside to smoke a cigarette. As I’m finishing, I see out of the corner of my eye a figure walking towards me. I finish my smoke and head back into the laundromat, not wanting any contact with the person walking down the street. This neighborhood, while not particularly bad, is definitely not good. There are no bars or restaurants open at this time of night around here besides a 7-11 several blocks away, the neighborhood is usually deserted, so foot traffic past 11 is, to me (as a single young woman) suspicious.
I watch through the window and see that the figure approaching is a youngish man, 30-40, dressed in jeans and a wifebeater. He sits on the bus stop bench outside the laundromat. Not cool. First off, he saw me walk in the laundromat, so his decision to suddenly sit down outside is disconcerting. Second, this bus stops running at 11, so there’s no bus coming. People who sit at bus stops when buses aren’t running are usually homeless, drug addicts, prostitutes, or generally up to no good. Really not fucking cool.
A few minutes later, he comes into the laundromat and asks me for a light. Damn it. But then, he asks me if I smoke pot. I tell him I don’t, give him the light he asked for, he lights his blunt and goes back to the bus stop bench. Extremely not cool. People who ask strangers if they engage in illegal activities as an obvious offer to engage in said activity are definitely not the type of people I want to hang out with past midnight in an empty laundromat.
He smokes his blunt outside, I transfer my clothes to dryers. He finishes his blunt and comes inside, then sits next to me and tries to engage me in conversation. I give the briefest answers possible and try to ignore him, pretending to be engrossed in the day-old crossword puzzle. He sits there the whole time, making me so incredibly uncomfortable. I was going to fold all my laundry there so I could just throw it in my dresser when I got home, but I don’t want to spend any more time with Creepy McCreeperton. I haul ass as soon as the dryers stop, even though some of the towels needed a few extra minutes.
So fuck you, you oblivious fucking fuckwit. Guess what? Even if you’re an all right guy who was just bored, young unaccompanied women at empty laundromats in virtually deserted neighborhoods do not appreciate your presence. When I’m out alone after dark, particularly after midnight, any stranger is a potential rapist, murderer, or thief. Only if you’re under 12 or over 75 do I let my guard down, and even then not completely. Maybe I’m completely fucking paranoid, but I was under the impression that most solitary women look at men in less than wholesome neighborhoods after dark as potential predators.
Even if this had happened at 3 in the afternoon I would have pissed that a complete stranger tried to chat me up. At a bar, maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal, or a party, or in some similar social situation. But when I’m going about my day, minding my own business, I don’t want to talk to strangers.
So stop being a rude, creepy, and annoying asshat. Stop approaching single women in the middle of the night. I should have called the cops and said there was a suspicious person loitering at the laundromat, possibly doing drugs. I should have told you to fuck off for being a creepy bastard. I really would have liked to punch you in the face for scaring me shitless.
Asshole.
