Stick Your Finger In It — It’ll Make It Sweeter
Ignoring and not hearing isn’t the same thing.
Oh, the things people say.
Specifically, the things men have said to me over the course of my life — particularly when I was a much younger woman.
When I worked as a barista in Key West, Florida at a Key Lime Pie shop and then later as a waitress at a local diner, I can’t tell you how many middle-aged to much older men told me to stick my finger’ in their coffee instead of sugar — to make it sweeter.
Trust me when I say many similar and no less sleazy remarks followed of the same caliber.
At the time, those words felt gross. They were ‘cringy’ before ‘cringy’ was a thing. I would tentatively smile and ignore those words. They were the customers, right? And the customer is always right. Always.
However, ignoring and not hearing isn’t the same thing. I definitely heard the words being said to me, over and over again. I just tried not to react in the way my instincts told me to react — which was to tell the person supplying the words — to kindly fuck off!
From comments about my body and my weight to inquiries about my love life, the siege of inappropriate verbiage was almost relentless as a young woman moving through the world. It followed me from the small cafes and diners of Key West to the 24/7 grind of the male-dominated trucking industry in California where I worked as a dispatcher and customer service representative.
Dealing with the public can be brutal. Absolutely brutal. Especially if you’re a food server or work in any kind of customer service capacity.
When you’re a young female trying to make ends meet and you’re essentially swimming in a pool with sharks cruising by, it can be difficult to feel like you’re in control in any sense of the word.
It can be a struggle to even think about speaking up when a male customer says something you know feels wrong but you’re too afraid to stand up and make it right.
As women, we hear and sometimes choose to ignore these kinds of creepy comments all the time — even from men we date. It’s not because we don’t get how demeaning and ridiculous the comments are — it’s just that we don’t always have the means or the time to entertain a great debate about how inappropriate these words are.
Sometimes we’re just trying to survive with our heads barely above water.
Life can’t always stop for the absurd and the disdainful.
Life goes on. Whether we call out the grotesque people and their words or not.
There are times when you have to sacrifice what’s right for what puts food in your stomach.
Flash-forward 20 years. I no longer have to rely on the tips of lonely men with their gross comments to fill my belly or make my rent.
Now I can see the folly of my ways in ignoring the sleazy words — but I can understand why I let them go at the time.
Allowing some ignorant, lonely, divorced dad to tell me to stick my finger in his coffee may have held power for him in his own mind at the time but — in the end — it gave me much more insight into the kind of behavior I knew was simply wrong and unfortunately sad.
Lessons learned. And don’t put your finger in their coffee.
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