Out and Back

The culture of victim-blaming is alive and well

Stepping out from behind my semi-anonymous blogging persona for a moment, I was dismayed (but not altogether surprised) to read a report in one of the local papers about a sexual assault on the Clemson University campus. (My husband is a grad student at Clemson and we live nearby.)

The story reads, in part:

Clemson University police advised students Friday to walk in groups of threes and fours after sunset after a student reported that she was sexually assaulted by two men in a campus parking lot on Perimeter Road early Friday morning.

The student, 18, was exiting her car when one of the men grabbed her from behind and sexually attacked her in Parking lot R-1 about 1:30 a.m., Clemson Police Chief Johnson Link said. She said she was then forced to the ground and attacked by a second man, he said.

She had been waiting in the parking lot for campus escort assistance, Link said. The campus escort is a service offered through the university Police Department that provides an escort for students going across the campus at night.

The student notified Clemson educators several hours later, Link said.

Like a lot of newspapers, the online edition of the Greenville News has a "story chat" feature that allows readers to post their reactions, comments, and thoughts about the various articles, opinion pieces, etc. It makes for entertaining reading a lot of the time, but sometimes the comments that get left are just upsetting. In the case of this article, someone named sillyhunter posted the following (emphases mine):

This story has some questions................Why was this child out in a parking lot this late? Why wait to report a rape later the next morning.....Had enough time to decide if it was a rape or not?? And if she doesn't know about safety in this day and age maybe college is not for her. Sounds like she still needs to be under the watchful eye of a responsible adult. Maybe went to a frat party and had one drink to many and got just a little too loose and had party regrets the next morning??????It's always somebody else's fault never the victim. The difference between a stupid victim and smart person is that one is the victim.

I just about upchucked when I read that comment. I posted my own response (I use the handle "coneydog" when posting to the forums on the Greenville News website) and was heartened to see that someone else posted a response basically telling sillyhunter to shut up.

Yes, dear ones, the culture of victim blaming is alive and well in South Carolina. I guess I'm not surprised, considering how much misogyny still pervades society down here. Any locals who come across this post are probably going to tell me to go the fuck home, Yankee, but I'm not backing down on this one. Rape is an underreported crime, and despite the notoriety of the Duke lacrosse rape case (in which the charges were eventually dropped because the alleged victim kept changing her story and there was no physical evidence linking her to the three players she accused) the number of truly false reports of rape remains quite low. (One reference I found suggested as low as 2% of all reported rapes in the U.S. are false.) And for every rape that is reported, how many go unreported because the victim is ashamed, afraid, or forcibly silenced?

Ladies, it doesn't matter how much you had to drink, what you were wearing, how well you knew the guy, or what you may or may not have done with him in the past. If you didn't want to have sex with him and he went ahead and fucked you anyway, he raped you. It doesn't matter if you fought back or not or if you told him to stop or not, because silence does not equal consent. And to the young woman at Clemson, I hope they catch the pigs that did this to you. For every insensitive creep that calls you "loose" and accuses you of having "party regrets," there are many more of us who care about you and support you without ever having met you. Remember that.

Sic 'em, Tisbe!

This walking slag-heap (who lives in nearby Georgia) thought it would be nice to feed live cats and kittens to his pit bulls.  What an utterly pathetic excuse for a human being.  I'll bet you a million bucks he's one of those good ol' boy types who didn't neuter his dogs, either... afraid it would take away their manhood or some such bullshit.

Too bad he never met my cat, Tisbe. She'd have taken his face off.  If the judge who sentences him is looking for a creative punishment, I'd be happy to loan Tisbe to the cause.

I'm well aware of the link between cruelty to animals and cruelty to humans.  Men who abuse animals frequently also abuse women and children, and I think the punishments for these kinds of offenders should take that fact into account.

Get him, Tisbe!

Excuse me while I throw things...

I was dismayed yesterday to learn that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled against the plaintiff (and the EEOC, I might add) in this case.  Here's the gist: according to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, employees who experience discrimination in the work place are required to file suit within 180 days.  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has argued over the years that "each paycheck that reflects the initial discrimination is itself a discriminatory act that resets the clock on the 180-day period[.]"  Today, the Supreme Court effectively told the EEOC to stick that interpretation where the sun don't shine.  So now employees can't sue for pay discrimination more than 180 days after the discrimination allegedly occurred... which means that employers are going to get away with continuing to pay women and minorities less than their white male counterparts and employees who are experiencing discrimination will have an even harder time getting their cases heard.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg opened a can of dissenting whoop-ass today, though, reading her dissenting opinion from the bench, which doesn't happen very often.  According to the New York Times article:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the majority opinion “overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination.” She said that given the secrecy in most workplaces about salaries, many employees would have no idea within 180 days that they had received a lower raise than others.

An initial disparity, even if known to the employee, might be small, Justice Ginsburg said, leading an employee, particularly a woman or a member of a minority group “trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment” to avoid “making waves.” Justice Ginsburg noted that even a small differential “will expand exponentially over an employee’s working life if raises are set as a percentage of prior pay."

Rock on, Justice Ginsburg.  And props to Justices Souter, Stephens, and Breyer for not having their heads up their asses.

In April, the American Association of University Women released the findings of a study it conducted over the course of several years about the pay gap.  Their findings?  The pay gap is real and it gets worse for women the longer they are in the work force.  You can read more about it here.  Then write to your elected officials and tell them to get off their butts and support the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Fair Pay Act.

Oink oink

Oh, the hypocrisy... I was reading the news headlines last night before going to bed when I came across this article.  It made me want to upchuck a little.  Ted Klaudt, a Republican and former member of the South Dakota state house, was arrested and charged with rape yesterday.  Here's a snippet:

Republican Ted A. Klaudt surrendered at the Corson County Sheriff's Office and made his initial court appearance on those charges after traveling more than 200 miles to Deadwood to find the nearest circuit judge on duty, Attorney General Larry Long said.

Klaudt did not enter a plea. He was to make another court appearance Friday in Pierre.

The state capital is in Hughes, while Klaudt's hometown is in Corson County.

The combined charges against him in both counties include eight counts of second-degree rape, two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, one count of sexual contact with a child younger than 16, two counts of witness tampering and one count of stalking. Some of the rape charges carry penalties of up to 50 years in prison.

The accusers were aged 15 to 19 over the years the crimes allegedly occurred. One girl was allegedly molested when she was a legislative page.

The girls told law officers that Klaudt touched their genitals during what he called exams for a purported scheme to have them donate their eggs to make money, Long said.

"He was convincing these girls they were candidates for donation of their eggs, that this would be a significant financial advantage to them and it was necessary for him to perform these acts on the girls to determine if they would be viable candidates for the procedure," Long told The Associated Press.

The investigation started when one of the girls made a complaint that was forwarded to the state Department of Social Services, which then contacted the state Division of Criminal Investigation, Long said.

Heaven (or something) help us.  I was curious, so I did a little digging and discovered that yes, Klaudt voted for that insane South Dakota abortion ban last year.  Of course he did.  Because sexually assaulting young women isn't enough for some guys, apparently.  They've got to dictate what said young women can and can't do with their uteruses, too.

Pig.

Eeeewww!

I read this news item yesterday in the local paper -- apparently, we've got a peeping tom in our neck of the woods.  *sigh*

Wouldn't it be great if freaks like this got thrown in jail on the first offense?  Sexual deviance often escalates, leading to sexual violence, even murder.  I say lock 'em up the first time they get caught.  Show me one sexual predator who has been rehabilitated successfully and I'll take it all back, but until then... lock 'em up!

Dreadful

As much as I would like to ignore the news most days (too damn depressing), I usually tune in to some news outlet or another at some point during the day.  I like to have at least a vague idea of what is going on in the world, in the country, and in my little corner of South Carolina.

Sometimes, though, in the quest to be informed, I hear news stories that I wish I could go back and "un-hear."  Such was the case this week when I heard about Tara Grant, the Michigan wife, businesswoman, and mother of two who was strangled and dismembered by her husband in early February.  (He was arrested over the weekend and the big news yesterday was that he had confessed.)

We'll probably never know why Tara's husband, Stephen, killed her... police said that they had argued shortly before her death about her frequent business trips... but I have a hard time believing that that was the only motive.  At any rate, it will take someone with more psychiatric prowess than I have to see into the mind and motivation of a man like that.

I suppose the one thing I've taken away from this tragedy is that we don't know our loved ones nearly as well as we think we do.  If someone had asked Tara on her wedding day if she thought her husband would kill her in the future, she probably would have been horrified at such a suggestion.  It's like what the neighbors say when they find out they've been living next to a serial killer for years: "Oh, he seemed like such a nice person.  Quiet, kept to himself, never caused anybody any trouble."  I guess we never really know.

Within an inch of my life

OK, back from hiatus for a minute.  Something happened today that I had to write about.  First, I need to preface this by saying that I have lived in both Philadelphia and New York.  In both instances, the neighborhoods I lived in bordered less savory areas and crime occasionally spilled over.  (As a matter of fact, one could characterize our neighborhood in Allentown that way, too.)  At no time, though, did I ever feel personally victimized (not even when that jerk-off tried to steal my purse last summer) or that my physical well-being was in danger.

Apparently, you have to move to South Carolina for that.

Yesterday, we needed a few things from a certain office-supply chain store, so I made a list and hopped in the car and drove the twelve or so miles to the nearest one.  Like most shops of its type, it was located in a strip mall, and like most strip malls, there was a "driveway" of sorts that ran between the row of stores and the parking spaces (ostensibly to allow for easy loading and unloading of passengers and purchases and to help with traffic flow in general.)

I parked my car, got out, and made my way to the store's entrance.  As I began crossing the "driveway," I noticed a champagne-colored Chevy approaching from my right.  It was still a reasonable distance away, and I estimated that I could easily finish crossing to the store before the car got anywhere close to me.  Second nature, right?  How many times in our lives do we cross in front of slow-moving traffic in a strip mall parking lot in order to get to our intended destination?

This instance was a little different.  The bastard behind the wheel of this particular champagne-colored Chevy decided to speed up just as my pedestrian self passed into the path of his car.

I'm not lying.  I heard the car accelerate.  I had to run -- not hustle, not walk briskly -- to get out of his way, and even then his front bumper passed dangerously close to my legs.

I've replayed it over and over in my mind and I know this wasn't a case of him not seeing me initially or me misjudging how far away he was and/or the speed at which he was traveling.  This was a case of some aggressive prick deciding it would be fun to intimidate a pedestrian with his car.

So I did what any normal human being would do in this situation: I screamed bloody murder, let fly a string of expletives (never has the word "motherfucker" rung out so clearly and elegantly as it did yesterday afternoon) and flipped the guy off.  He returned the gesture and started to speed away, but I ran after his car, memorized the plate number, and called the police.  They've got his plate number now and are investigating.  (Oh, and as I ran to get close enough to see his plate -- still at least a couple of car lengths away from him -- he opened his car door and made like he was going to get out, but then thought the better of it and started to drive off again.  I'd like to think he was scared I'd actually kick his ass or something.)

Not that the guy who tried to harm me is going to read this, but this next segment is for him, and all the other ass-backwards redneck jerks in this state who think it's fun to use cars as weapons:

I hope you got your jollies from trying to scare the shit out of me, and I hope the cops find you and I hope I get to press charges against your white trash ass.  You have definitely fucked with the wrong woman.

Kiss my yankee ass, motherfucker.

Assorted assholes

Wow, am I ever on a tear!

This whole Mark Foley thing is appalling to me, but even more appalling is the apparent attempt to cover up the whole thing by the Republicans.  These are a lot of the same guys who went ape shit on Clinton over the whole Lewinsky thing.  To them I say, "At least Monica was legal, you morons."

On a more serious note, I volunteered for CASA when I was living in Missouri.  If you don't know, CASA stands for Court-Appointed Special Advocates.  As a CASA volunteer, it was my duty to represent the rights of abused and neglected children in court.  I saw and dealt with some pretty horrific things, including two little girls (ages 4 and 6) who had been sexually molested by their father (after he had gotten their mother hooked on meth.)  I also met a four year old boy whose bipolar mother was dating a guy with a hair-trigger temper, and when mom was off her meds and in a major depressive episode, the bf just couldn't deal with an active four-year-old.  The child's grandparents took out a restraining order against the bf on the kid's behalf.  In both cases, it was up to me to recommend to the judge what was in the best interests of these poor children.

So when I read about an adult who uses his power and influence to sexually exploit minors, I get more than just a little pissed off.  I have seen, firsthand, what happens when children are abused and exploited, and I'm shocked not only by Rep. Foley's behavior, but also by the manner in which his Republican friends appear to have tried to cover it up.  There's no excuse for this kind of garbage.

And don't even get me started on the recent school shootings, in which young girls were victimized by half-cocked men.  A recent post on feministing.com exposes the underlying misogyny in these attacks.  Once again, anyone who thinks the feminist movement is dead or useless needs their fucking head examined.

More boiling blood

I found this account via feministing.com, a great feminist blog that I read regularly.  It's about a woman's attempt to get a prescription for emergency contraception, also known as Plan B or the morning-after pill.  Needless to say, I was livid after I finished reading it.

Anyone who thinks that the feminist movement is "over" or "tired" or "irrelevant," or just a bunch of man-hating bitches who need an excuse to become lesbians or something ridiculous like that should take a look at this article.  As long as there are self-righteous people (male and female) trying to keep us from controlling our own bodies, we'll be around to fight back. 

I wonder what would happen if a female doctor refused to prescribe Viagra for a single guy because she had a "moral objection" to the fact that he would most likely go out and fuck everything with two tits and a pulse?

Grr.

I leave you with one of my favorite slogans:

Because woman's work is never done
and is underpaid or unpaid or boring or
repetitious and we're the first to get fired
and what we look like is more important
than what we do and if we get raped it's
our fault and if we get beaten we must have
provoked it and if we raise our voices we're
nagging bitches and if we enjoy sex we're
nymphos and if we don't we're frigid and if
we ask our doctors too many
questions, we're neurotic and/or pushy and
if we expect childcare we're selfish and if we
stand up for our rights we're aggressive and
"unfeminine" and if we don't we're typical
weak females and if we want to get married
we're out to trap a man and if we don't we're
unnatural and because we still can't get
adequate safe contraception but man can walk
on the moon and... for lots and lots
of other reasons, we are part of the
women's liberation movement.

I'm a bitch!

OK, more in the continuing saga of the loser who told the sick joke about women ground up and in the freezer.  I told my boss, and he was shocked and sympathetic.  He used the word "reprehensible."  Bottom line is my dumbass co-worker got a stiff warning and now has to send me a written apology.  And the best part?  It's all been documented in his personnel file!

Chalk one up for me! 

I'm really not a man-hating bitch... really.  I just don't like it when people say deplorable, degrading, threatening things about women in my presence.  It was harder than I thought it would be to speak up and say something... by Sunday night I was second-guessing myself... but then I thought about all the women whose voices have been silenced, or who have been laughed at or worse for trying to fight back.  I did this for them as much as for myself.

Somewhere in Missouri, there is an ex-cop, who, while he was still on the force, berated and verbally abused me during a routine traffic stop a few years ago.  (Yes, I was speeding... maybe 5-10 miles over the speed limit on a deserted four-lane road.)  I didn't speak up about it until two months later in traffic court, and the judge and prosecutor (both women) laughed at me.  I let their derision convince me that I was overreacting, and I never reported the officer to his superiors on the police force.  About four months after that, an article appeared on the front page of our local paper about the same officer.  He had been suspended (and was later thrown off the force) for smacking up his ex-wife in the parking lot of a local bar.  She had the guts to press charges.  I regretted that someone had to get hurt before that guy finally got his due, and ever since then I've promised myself that I would never again shy away from speaking up.

It's a promise I'm glad I got a chance to keep.

...and you can get it on a t-shirt

I discovered yesterday that that awful joke my co-worker told on Saturday morning is available on a t-shirt.

Don't you just love our society?

A joke that's never funny

I may catch hell for this post, but something happened yesterday that I need to share.  I was at work for a breakfast event, and a group of my colleagues and I were sitting together at one table.  One of my male colleagues came over with his coffee cup, and we all started to talk about how early it was, how much we all needed coffee in the morning to function, etc.  This particular colleague, as he sat down, said, "Yeah, I like my coffee like I like my women.... ground up and in the freezer."

The rest of us were speechless.  His attempt at a joke fell completely flat.  I was too stunned to say a thing, although I think my eyes got big and I spluttered a little.  He backpedaled, half-apologized, etc., when he realized that none of us thought his little joke was funny.

I wish now that I had had the nerve to speak up, because that shit definitely isn't funny.  Joking about murdering women isn't funny.  I do find it interesting that that line is probably in a different place for everyone.... and that it's hard to know sometimes when you've crossed it.  As for me, I can often be heard saying, "Oh, I could just kill him/her!" in frustration.  Or, "Sometimes I just want to strangle so-and-so."  I don't think anyone would mistake my quips for anything but hyperbole, though, whereas the manner in which this "joke" was delivered actually sent a chill down my spine.

I'll allow that some people might chuckle at a "joke" like that.  But what kind of nitwit cracks humor like that in a workplace setting???  If nothing else, it was certainly not appropriate for the context in which we found ourselves on Saturday morning.  I should also mention that this particular colleague's job involves interfacing with the public and building relationships between our organization and our constituents.  God knows what he's saying when we're not around.

I get asked now and then why I still profess to be a feminist.  A lot of people think the women's movement is redundant and "over."  But it's not.  As long as jerks like my co-worker are making stupid, stupid jokes about women ground up in the freezer, there will be a need for feminism... strong women who will call a spade a spade and say "enough is enough, you asshole!"

I'm documenting this.  And I'm going to talk to my boss on Monday.  This shit has got to stop.

Bad Dates, Part 2: The Adventist Ass-Man

Welcome to the second installment of "Bad Dates."  This one was a real doozy... after corresponding for a bit with yet another guy who answered my personal ad, we decided to meet in person and hang out.  I think we agreed to meet up early, like at 6 p.m. or something.  I assumed we'd be having dinner, since we'd decided to meet at the local Pizza Hut.  When he showed up, though, he said he wasn't hungry.  I was starving, so I drove to drive-in burger place nearby, where we could sit in the car and talk while I got something to eat.

After that slightly awkward beginning, we fell into relatively comfortable conversation, talking about our lives, our histories, our hobbies... typical first date stuff.  Over the course of our evening, it became abundantly clear to me that this kid was supremely messed up.  He was a few years younger than me (I think he was 19 or 20 to my 23) and had been raised a Seventh Day Adventist.  As a result, his views on dating, women, and sexuality were pretty warped.  We took a walk in a nearby park and he was only too eager to initiate some physical contact, but all he wanted to do was hug me.  He wouldn't kiss me, even on the cheek!  And he seemed thoroughly fixated on my butt... couldn't keep his hands off of it.  He was a virgin, of course, and he actually told me (while trying to fondle my ass) that even though his religion forbade premarital sex that in his mind anal sex was OK because there wasn't any chance of getting the woman pregnant!!!!!

That was all I needed to hear.  It was barely 9 p.m. and I couldn't wait to ditch this guy.  I said goodbye to him and raced over to my favorite coffee shop to smoke cigarettes and drink decaf with a couple good friends and tell them about the totally surreal evening I had just had.  Their jaws hit the table when I described the kid and his unusual perspective on sex.  It was like I was temptation personified and he was somehow caught between wanting to give in to temptation on the one hand and wanting to condemn me to hell on the other.  Weird, weird, weird.

He called a couple of days later and we said almost at the same moment that we didn't think it would be a good idea to go out again.  I guess he had decided to stick to being a churchgoing ass-fondler.  I decided to start dating guys who, like me, have little or no use for organized religion.

Bad Dates, Part 1: Robust Zinfandel

Another first entry in what I hope will be an ongoing series of stories about horrific dates I have been on/horrific men I have dated, etc., etc.  I have been watching way too many episodes of Sex and the City lately, so I guess I'm channeling my inner Carrie Bradshaw.  Actually, to be perfectly honest, I am feeling quite out of sorts today and in a foul mood.  As a result, I found myself dying to create a new category for my blog entries entitled, simply, "Men suck."

Obligatory disclaimer: not all men suck.  My husband most assuredly does not suck, nor do my brothers or even (sometimes) my dad.  I wouldn't even go so far as to say my father-in-law sucks.  I work with some men who don't suck.  So.... not all men suck!

That being said, however... it's my blog and I'll bitch if I want to!

Oh yeah... and I'll be changing names to protect the not-so-innocent.  With that, onward to the first installment in the series known as "Bad Dates."

In 1999, I was living in a small town in southeastern Washington state.  I was working for my alma mater and it was kind of a weird existence.  I was on the campus of my college on a daily basis, but I was no longer a student.  I still had some friends who were students, but the guy I'd had an on-again, off-again relationship for two years had graduated and moved back to California, and I was alone.  I was still in love with California boy (he's fodder for another entry altogether) and I spent almost the entire summer of '99 trying to get over him.  It hurt like hell, but it was one of the most strengthening, fortifying, growthful times in my life.  There was a tinge of beauty in the sadness I felt, but with every summer morning that dawned the sadness gave way to a feeling of strength and independence that I still miss sometimes.  By October, I felt like I could stomach the idea of going out on a date.

So I did.  I posted a personal ad and got a fairly rapid response from a biochemist who was working in the next town over.  He was intelligent, cultured, and very handsome (we exchanged photos) and as we traded emails and phone messages I felt myself thinking that I could really have a good time with this guy.

He drove over to meet me for Mexican one night, and afterward we played pool and hung out.  He was shorter than he told me... he claimed he was 5'8" so I wore flats so as not to tower over him on on our date.  Even with me in flats, the top of his head barely cleared my eyebrows (and I'm 5'6"!)  I made the mistake of smoking a cigarette while we played pool (I came to find out later he was a total Nazi when it came to stuff like that, never mind the fact that I was trying to quit and had only lit up out of sheer nervousness.)  We enjoyed what I thought was a nice evening, and the date ended with a goodnight kiss and an agreement to get together again soon.

I never heard from him again.

Yes, it's the classic story.  At the time, though, there was no Jack Berger to say, "He's just not that into you," nor was there the book whose title bears the same catchphrase.  I had to figure it out on my own.  And as I figured it out, I realized I was still fragile, still burned enough from my breakup that I couldn't shrug off this guy's thinly-veiled rejection.  I'm not kidding when I say "thinly-veiled"... he had revised his own personal ad to specify that he wanted an woman who was "active" and "healthy", which is personal ad speak for "not a cow."  The jerk assumed that because I carried extra weight that all I did was camp on the couch and snarf pork rinds.  The truth was, I liked to go for long walks and ride my bike around town, not to mention go dancing... I wasn't exactly hitting the climbing wall every day, but I did like to get out and move my ass.  On top of that, I was trying to give up smoking (and I was up-front about that in my ad.) 

This is the best part... he also threw some cheesy line into his re-worked ad about reading poetry by his fireplace while enjoying a "robust zinfandel."  Yes, you read that right.  To this day, whenever I bring home a bottle of zinfandel, my husband always asks me, with a wink, if it's robust.

It took me a week to figure out that I wasn't going to hear from him.  I wrote him an email telling him that if he wasn't interested in seeing me again, he could have at least told me that.  Even a rejection by email would have been OK.  I just wished he would have been a grownup and been honest with me.

I Googled Mr. Robust Zinfandel a while back... apparently he is now curing cancer at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, MD.  So, good for him, I guess.  I hope he found whatever it was he was looking for in a woman.  I appreciate the lessons I learned from him:

1.) Don't smoke on a date unless you're sure the guy is a smoker, too.
2.) Don't assume that if a guy likes your photo he's going to like you in real life.
3.) No matter how much of a good time he says he's had, don't expect the guy to call you or return your calls.
4.) Never, EVER refer to a "robust zinfandel" in your personal ad.

Bungled burglars and twists of fate

I had an experience today which was unsettling, to say the least.  Fortunately, it ended well.  My purse was almost stolen at work today.  The department in which I work is spread out over three floors of one building.  One colleague and I inhabit a small office on the third floor, there is another cluster of colleagues on the second floor, and yet another group on the first floor.  As you can probably imagine, my job involves a lot of rides on the elevator (or trips up and down the stairs if I'm feeling ambitious) depending on which of my co-workers I need to see.

Normally, when I am at work, I chuck my purse under my desk, where it is well out of the way and not obvious unless someone is deliberately searching for it.  My computer tower conceals it partially, and when my chair is pushed up close to the desk it is very difficult to see.  This afternoon at a few minutes to four, I headed downstairs to ask two of my colleagues a question, and to deliver some papers to a third colleague.  My first stop was on the second floor -- I got my question answered and chatted with my colleagues for a few minutes, and then made my way out of their office to begin my descent to the first floor.  Just as I was stepping into the hallway, I saw a man walking slightly ahead of me.  He was dressed in grubby jeans and a white polo-style shirt, and he had my purse tucked under his right arm.

He heard me behind him and turned to me as if to ask where the restroom or a particular office was.  Before he could get the words out, I asked, "Why do you have my purse?"  He replied, "This isn't your purse -- it's my wife's.  She left it upstairs and I went to get it for her."  By this point, I had recognized my heart-shaped keychain from the Swiss Bank, and I knew he was mistaken.  I stepped closer to him and said, "No, that's definitely my purse.  I recognize my keys."  He kept insisting that it wasn't mine, that it belonged to his wife.  Decisively, I grabbed it away from him, set it down on a table nearby, and said, "Let me show you."  He continuned to protest, but I whipped out my wallet and waved my driver's license in his face.  "You see that?" I fairly shrieked, pointing at the small photo of myself on the license.  "That's ME!  WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TRYING TO DO?"  I kept stepping closer and closer to him, daring him to deny the truth of the matter.

He said, "There must be some kind of mix-up.  I'm going to go get my wife.  She's just downstairs."  And then he took off.  I hollered to my co-worker down the hall to call security, that some guy had just tried to steal my purse.  Our security officers made a thorough check of the area surrounding our building, but the would-be thief had gotten away.  They took a report from me and thanked me for calling them.  I was able to give them a pretty good description of the guy, right down to the Howard Johnson logo on his white polo shirt.  I warned all of my female co-workers to double check and make sure their purses were still present.  It seemed that mine was the only one the guy had gotten to.

A frightening post-script to this is that my office-mate was in our office when my purse was taken, and she didn't hear a thing.  The guy would have had to silence my jangling keys as he dug my purse out from under my desk, and on top of that she couldn't see over the partition that separates our two desks.  When I left the office, all the horrific scenarios ran through my head.  What if I had stepped into the hallway just ten seconds later, or earlier?  What if he had actually gotten away with my purse?  My keys, wallet, and checkbook were in there, and he would have had a pretty nice time with all of that stuff, I would imagine.  It would have been short work for him to come to our house, let himself in, and help himself to whatever he wanted, never mind all the identity theft he could have successfully pulled off!

There were a couple of positive things, though... I realized, much to my relief, that I am in fact capable of being an aggressive bitch when I have to be.  I was prepared to tackle this guy for my $358 Coach signature tie-dye shoulder tote and its precious contents, so I must be tougher than I sometimes feel.  When the security officer was taking my statement, someone radioed him and he replied, "I'm here with the victim now."  Victim?  I don't fucking think so!!

The fact that I caught him in the act has reaffirmed my belief that things happen for a reason.  Someone or something was watching out for me, so maybe my karma isn't so bad after all.  And I have learned my lesson: from now on, my purse goes in a locked drawer.  Out of sight, out of (thief's) mind.

Here's hoping Tuesday is better!  Oh yeah, and if you see a skinny white guy with dirty jeans and a white polo with the Howard Johnson logo on it, beat him senseless for me.