The inconsiderate man and the women who “may” be at fault. Meh.

This item was inspired by an early morning trip to the former home of falling prices and smiley faces.  Well these days the prices aren’t falling and the smiley faces have been removed from the bags amongst other changes, but one thing hasn’t changed and that’s the diversity amongst the clientele.  I go to the store as early as possible as I don’t like the smell of dirty diapers, the sight of dirty pajama bottoms or fist fights.  I walked into the store grabbed some items from the produce section and made my way to look for these veggie steamer deals.  I’ve been told by my friends that I do not have a Poker face and it’s true so if I’m lost chances are I will look lost.  I do however have a game face  that doubles as a wall used to shield what I’m thinking or feeling when no one needs to know.  I digress so I’m making my way down the aisle and a man asks ” are you lost?”   Being my fathers child I quickly replied “no I just don’t know where their veggie steamers are, but thank you”.   I continued down the aisle with the intention of grabbing something else and dude begins to follow me.   As I struggle to open the various freezer doors to get a look at the items he just stands there then he hits me with a barrage of questions.  He then stands a few feet away from me  open doors showing me food saying “you should try this” or “this looks good”.   I finally find something I want and being a kind lady I tell him to have a nice day. As I begin to make my exodus he says ” ay uh uh can we talk?”   Again my non poker face must have shown up because he says I can give you my number?   I say go ahead… STOP now this is where I went wrong.   What I should have done was found a polite way to so “no thank you I’m not interested” not Ms Congeniality!   No I say go ahead what is it? All because of this need to be polite when he really didn’t deserve my kindness.  I did not write the number down and in all honesty I never need to as I have an excellent memory.  In this case I never intended on calling him.  I really could have checked him nicely, but I know “Sistas” have gotten a bad rap for being overly assertive and are often mislabeled as angry.  I tend to do all I can to display the opposite.   As I walked away and he stood there looking like a dear caught in the headlights I became angry, but I always have my game face ready to go, but behind that wall all kinds of thoughts were going.   Did he really think I was going to call him?  Humph the nerve of him to offer me his number!   I should have checked him right on the spot!   To be honest that’s one of my gifts you giving people the business and they really feel it but aren’t mad because it was done so tactfully.  Now you might be thinking uh maybe you are an angry woman, but if you paid any attention to what you just read you will remember my making mention of the fact that I was struggling to open the freezer door.   Well the reason for that would be the bag of oranges and bag of apples in my right hand and the bag of bananas in my left hand.   So you see the, smirk, raised eyebrow and shaking of the head as I walked off wasn’t because I felt he was beneath me or even that he was truly bothering me it was the fact that he was trying to make conversation while my bags were slipping and not once did it occur to him to offer me any help.  The raised eyebrow was because well who does that?   Maybe I’m spoiled by the men in my life.   My Daddy, brothers or friends would never do that!   I was so taken aback that I took him back.  All the way back to work with me and thought of him throughout the day.   I wondered if he was as rude as my conditioning portrayed him to be or if he was a product of his own conditioning by the so called independent woman.   Now by definition independent describes one who doesn’t require or rely on anyone else.   Now I don’t know anyone who can honestly say they don’t don’t depend on anyone for anything.  We can be self sufficient all day long, but independent?  Not likely, but the term is thrown around a lot.    It’s usually spewed from the mouth of a somewhat angry woman who has had to do it all by herself.  She may be beautiful, but it’s hard to see.   Her femme fatal was replaced by a wrinkled brow, hands on her hips and twisted lips.  She has been built up and let down one time too many and at this point would prefer to handle things herself in order to make sure they get done.  She feels that most men aren’t about anything but in reality it’s just the men she has chosen.  Maybe she did have a nice guy once and maybe he tried to help and she made him feel so inadequate that he simply gave up trying.  After dealing with enough super independent woman this brother simply became lazy and soon “move here I got it” became “nah I ain’t helpin she got it”   Maybe he didn’t know if I was gonna be cool or come out a bag if he offered to  help me with my bags?  I will never know.  All I can do is wonder.  One thing I do know is that?  I am not an independent woman.   I am self sufficient and not so much so that I don’t need you because I do.  I need you to reach that thing up in the cabinet that’s just out of my reach.  I need you to open this jar, but lemme try it myself first okay?   When you open the jar I will smile inside and out because at that moment you are my hero.  I appreciate you.  So please fellas don’t assume all women are the same.  Some of us ladies want you to open the jar.  We will not snatch it out of your hands to show you we don’t need you.  We will let you open the jar and not because we can’t open it ourselves.  We like the fact that you even care enough to offer.   We take comfort in the possibility that maybe just maybe chivalry isn’t dead. Have a beautiful day beautiful people!