As I left work today, I discovered it was much warmer than I expected. Uh-oh. I’d worn my heavy down coat in, so I knew what that meant. Some random stranger was likely to comment on how I was dressed. I don’t know if it’s me (I’m a cold-weenie and tend to dress warmer than most people) or something about Minnesota culture that compels people to interrogate strangers about their winter-wear, but this happens to me constantly.
The most obvious target for public ridicule is the thing I wear over my face. I get sinus infections that make me incredibly ill, and cold air is one of the triggers. Therefore, I always keep my nose and mouth covered when its chilly out. I don’t know what the thing I wear is called, but it was designed for this purpose. It’s just a tube of thin polar fleece that you put around your neck and can pull over your face. Between that and my hat, only my eyes peer out from late fall through late spring. This perturbs people.
When I arrived at the bus stop, some guy ten feet away from me calls out, “Are you cold?” He starts laughing. I ignore him. He repeats the query and keeps laughing like an idiot. “I get sinus infections,” I say, and look away. “Oh! You should take a pill for that. Tylenol.” More inane laughter. I give him a grouchy “Yes.” and ignore him. He finally discovers some manners and leaves me alone. Thank goodness.
Someday when I’m really tired and grouchy, and I’m going to snap at someone and tell them it’s none of their damn business what I wear. It REALLY annoys me that people grill me like this. What exactly is their problem? A couple of years ago, I was ready to kill the driver on my morning bus. Every single day for three months he asked why I was wearing a heavier jacket than he felt the weather required. I’m not kidding. Every. Single. Day.
Once, I put my hand on his so he could feel it was a block of ice. “I get cold easily,” I explained. That shut him up for two mornings. Then we were right back into the intrusive commenting on my clothing. Just as I was about to get nasty with him, the bus company rotated drivers, and I no longer had to endure his rudeness. If he were the only person to do this to me, I’m not sure I would have put up with it for three months. The problem is that there are so MANY people who do this that I either have to be bitchy to total strangers on a regular basis, or I just have to keep it brief and prickly, which shuts most people up. But honestly, I’d lay into these morons if it weren’t for the fact that yelling at total strangers would leave me in a worse mood than trying to get out of conversing with them as quickly as possible.
One thing I did find interesting about today’s encounter. The guy was (presumably) an Asian immigrant. He had a heavy accent. When he told me to take a pill, it was all I could do to bite my tongue instead of saying, “Since when did you get brainwashed by American culture into thinking that pills cure everything and solve all problems?”
I didn’t say it, even though I was thinking it. I guess I find it ironic that there are Americans who loathe Western medicine with its pills and go on and on about how wonderful Eastern medicine is and how they know things we don’t, etc. and here’s this Asian guy telling me to take a pill. Because that’s the other set of people who drive me up the wall–the people who learn I have health problems and who feel compelled to offer me medical advice. The ones who say “Isn’t there a pill for that?” and the ones who say “People wouldn’t be sick if they’d just stop taking pills. What do we need all these pills for? Americans take too many pills.” I find both groups equally rude and clueless. Maybe I should introduce them to the people who feel it’s their duty to comment on my clothing. They can all get a room and talk about me while I go about my business unhindered by their obsessions.
Either that, or I need to cultivate a psychotic glint in my eye. There are plenty of people downtown with drug problems and mental health issues who dress oddly. I bet these intrusive strangers don’t go up to them and ask why they’re dressed that way. That’s it! I shall simply have to start talking out loud to myself in long, rambling sentences that make no rational sense. Then maybe I’ll have lots of space to myself at the bus stop, with nobody intruding into my business. It just might work.
Recent Comments