Overheard

On Facebook last week, one of my virtual friends wrote that she'd just been groped by a sex pest on the tube, and that it was a shitty end to a shitty day. Several of her friends had expressed their sympathy. I sat there fuming. No one ever gropes ME on the tube. Through my warped eyes, her status update said, 'A stranger found me attractive enough to risk a fine or prosecution.' Well just hang on a moment while I get out my violin and start playing something REALLY SAD to accompany your entirely unjustified self-pity.

Similar phrases:
I'm trying really hard to put on weight at the moment, but I just can't seem to do it!
I'm in love with two guys and I don't know which one to pick!
I've been invited to three parties this Saturday and I feel really bad turning two down :(

POOR YOU. I didn't feel sympathetic. I felt murderous.

Then last night, I was walking along a quiet suburban street in a fairly new pair of skinny jeans. I can wear these now because, since last November, I've lost quite a lot of weight, most of it from my lower half. I was also wearing a longish cardigan and a coat. On the street behind me, I heard a largish vehicle approaching. Then I heard it slowing down and, just as it reached me, an unmistakably black voice said, "Nice arse." My arse has long attracted the attention of black guys. Several times a year, I receive comments on it from them. Unfortunately, that is the extent of the comments I receive - nothing about my face being pretty, or any other element of my appearance of which I'm happy, and nothing from white guys. It's always black guys, it's always about my arse, and it's always about the fact that it's bigger than average. I had hoped that my recent weightloss would change this. But clearly not.

As the van drove off, I was pretty sure the driver had genuinely meant that he thought my arse looked nice. I think he had gained pleasure from its existence and had intended to pay me a compliment. But at that moment, I felt like lying down on the pavement and sobbing. His comment was proof that I had still not achieved my goal of having an arse that wasn't worth a remark. I desperately want a boring arse. And as I schlepped on towards my therapy session, I felt a brief surge of sympathy for the girl who was groped.

Still angry and hurt, I ate quesadilla and fish and chips and spinach for dinner, and drank a lot of white wine.

Later on last night, I was walking into Shepherd's Bush tube station. As I approached, I noticed a young guy dancing to the music in his head. He was good. About twenty yards away two school-age girls walked by him. "Excuse me," shouted the podgier one at the guy, "your dancing's bangin'."
"Thanks," he replied. I was now right by him.
"She's right," I said.
"Thank you, sir," he said, grinning.
"SIR?!" I wheeled round.
"I said SWEETHEART!" he said, immediately, as I broke into a smile. "I must've mumbled. Sorry."

Sir would have finished me off.