Cute, ** Blue! ** Spidy, being a mom myself with a son up in Virginia far from home, I can not imagine hearing this story and not blowing a gasket!! And he’s a guy!
Angie, you sound like a young girl with her head on straight, and you handled a really ‘touchy’ situation with a great deal of nerve and aplumb. Good for you!! I’m with Feline, who encouraged you to speak up, if it should happen again [Dear God, please don’t let it happen again!!] “Hey, CUT THAT OUT” in your best loud voice and move to another pole. Embarrass the dickens out of the perv.
[good goin’ on the roach too!! ** LOVED ** Leah Zero’s lyrical way of describing the rules for critter removal!]
Actually they have found now that sexual offenders usually start by exposing themselves, and then move up to bigger and worse things. I know where I live, they used to just write a ticket for things like that, and now they take them in, make them go to consuling, jailtime etc.
Remember, though, never spray anyone on a subway. Not only will the perv get stung, so will you and any other passengers in the car as the peppper cloud spreads out. Only use pepper spray or mace outdoors when the wind is at your back. Any weapon you carry can be used against you, even accidentally.
I agree that a loud, disdainful announcement is usually your best bet, provided there are other people around.
Riding the N train one day, I saw a teenaged guy move to put his legs up on a “three seat” when the crowd on the train thinned out a bit. As he moved to put his legs up, a woman was simultaneously in the process of sitting down. When she nearly sat on his boots, the kid kicked her in the hip pretty hard and called her a bitch.
Now, I’m no hero, but this was too much. “Hey, you don’t kick people!” I shouted, hoping that the other people who had seen what had just happened would join with me and at least embarass this jerk kid into feeling like the asshole he was. Or something.
The conculsion is such a cliche, I feel like a hack just retelling it. No one said an F’ing word. Not even the woman who had been kicked. The kid got in my face, yelling at me about how he was going to kick my ass, etc. All I could think of to say was “you don’t kick people.”
Again, no one said a word which I found to be extremely unsettling. I get angry about it even just typing it now.
Regarding the pepperspray option, bdgr et al, I’m pretty sure it is illegal to use (maybe even carry) such items in NYC.
I realize that that fact might be of little consideration, given the stakes involved in a perv-encounter. Certainly plenty of females here flaunt this law in the interest of self-protection, and I’ve never heard of any of them getting hassled for it; and it isn’t too hard to find merchants who sell the stuff reasonably openly.
I only mention it FYI, and to warn any pepper-packing posters that move to NYC that they might want to leave the sprayer at home if they expect to, say, pass through a courthouse metal detector where it might raise eyebrows and/or be confiscated.
I’m sorry to hear that happened to you, but not surprised. There was a case in NYC back in the sixties or seventies of a woman being murdered in the courtyard of an apartment building, with possibly several hundred witnesses, and not one person called the police, or went to help. (I believe the woman’s name was Kitty Genovase(sp?)).
I’m glad you weren’t harmed other than emotionally.
bdgr, that news is unsettling to me about the exposure thing leading to other, more harmful misbehaviors. I am also of the opinion that in most cases of serious offenders, that counseling does no good and the best solution is to keep these people incarcerated so they can’t hurt anyone else.
True…The idea, is that things like that are an addiction, and like an drug addict, if you could head them off before they take the first drug, then there wouldn’t be a problem. Only time will tell if it works. I’m a bit skeptical, but any port in a storm.
Regarding the Kitty Genovese murder: it happened on 3/13/64 (stuyguy’s 5th b-day, for whatever that’s worth) in Kew Gardens, Queens – not too many miles from Angie’s Jackson Heights. Thirty-eight witnesses – not several hundred – ignored her screams as she was stabbed to death. Fortunately, her murderer was captured, tried and convicted; he was sentenced to death, but that was lated commuted to life imprisonment.
Yeah, too damn many NYers play the hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil game, especially on the subway. But I witnessed an episode a few months back that was quite refreshing. Two high school (or early college) students – on male, one female – were on the train having the loudest, swearingest, poking-fingers-in-each-other’s-facest argument you ever heard; she accused him of cheating on her with a friend of hers, if I recall. The cusswords were flying fast and furious, and just when it looked like things would surely get physical, a mid-twentyish male stranger stepped in between the combatants to cool them down. He was calm and reasonable, but firm enough to get their attention and respect. And he stayed at it. Things calmed down, but the argument did not stop, so he did not go away. When the two screamers got off, taking the “debate” with them, he went too.
That man had balls and poise that I (and probably all the other passengers) wished I had. It’s guys like him that restore my faith in people.
Yes he is ** Spider Woman, ** I was telling him this story about your daughter today, and he said he would have freaked out if it had happened to him and then laughingly added that he could’ve have imagined having to tell me on top of the incident would have been just too much for one young person to have to endure! Oh yeah, he’s a hoot at times!!
How long did it take you to get ‘gasket-less’??? Maybe with DJ just being a junior, I still have a while to go!
Leah, I heard that, young lady!! ::::::::::::giggling behind her hand [oh no, I said HAND!!]
When I was in NYC a year or so back, we brought pepper spray- after checking to make sure it was legal. Went through airport screening and all - but we never needed to use it. I would check again, in case we were misinformed.
Maybe with DJ just being a junior, I still have a while to go!