Loose Laces

A while back, I went to the Ford dealership to have the Escape serviced. They have a very small waiting room for their customers, and on that day it was full. I lolled around the showroom for a short while until a seat became available. Soon after nodding a greeting to my fellow waitees and settling myself, a woman about my age came into the room. I immediately got to my feet and offered her my seat which she declined to take, telling me it was unnecessary for me to get up for her. Nothing really unusual about that, except it left me in a quandary; I was raised to be a gentleman, especially when ladies are present. Maybe old fashioned, but it is what it is and I am whom I am. There the seat was with no one to fill it. She stubbornly refused to sit down—a feminist thing?—and I couldn't sit as long as there was no other chair free. The longer I stood, the more my ravaged knee hurt. If I had retaken the chair and left the woman standing, my mom would somehow have managed to arise from her grave and slap me. Finally I limped back to the showroom and managed to put part of my big butt on a window ledge just to relieve my knee. When the service on the truck was finished, I was obliged to go back through the waiting room, which was abandoned except for a middle-aged man (he didn't get up and offer the woman a seat when she came in) and the stubborn woman. Of course, she was sitting and merrily chatting with that particular doofus.

Who knows? Maybe she wasn't a feminist. Maybe she just didn't like my looks or thought I was going to try to make a move on her. Or it could be she was being a bitch.

I'll go on being an ardent supporter of the feminist movement, but I can't get above my raising. In the end and if a choice has to be made, I will chose to be a gentleman. I can tolerate the bitches and chauvinists of the world, men and women.