Help the Aged.


Yesterday afternoon, for a good few minutes, I suspected an old woman of repeatedly touching my bum up in a queue.

I should probably rephrase that: less 'a good few minutes', more 'a terrifying ordeal'. It kept happening with startling regularity. I was getting a little concerned; ‘surely this can’t be happening here?’, I thought to myself.

(Not that there’s a place where being repeatedly groped by a geriatric is acceptable.)

The woman had been giving my derrière so much attention that I was starting to feel like a male Jennifer Lopez. Maybe my bottom would bring about my fortune? I’d always suspected it.
 
I was starting to wonder how to address it. It was ridiculous: she was groping me and yet I was the one who felt embarrassed about it. 

I didn't know how to phrase my complaint. “Sorry, could you please just stop touching my arse” just seemed too aggressive. Maybe I should have just given her a little wink and licked my lips.

Eventually I plucked up the courage to turn around and face her - and it was with a strange mix of relief and disappointment that I discovered she had been repeatedly touching my bum with her bag, not her hand.

I’m glad I realised the truth of the matter before I’d spoken out. I dread to think how it would have panned out if I hadn’t.

Which reminds me: I must stop wearing those arseless trousers.

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