girlmoxie

To make a list of my favorite things that Erin says and does would be futile, to try to rank them, silly. But one particular thing she says gets me every time.

I pick her up in my car, and we’re off on some adventure or another, and a man (usually unattractive in some way, not some young, hot runner or anything like that) happens by our path. Immediately, she’s got a running commentary, audible only to us. There are variances, but it usually goes a little something like this:

“Hey, there, hot stuff. Where you going so fast? He’s just asking for it. See the way his pants slide oh-so-sexily down, just teasing me with that ass crack of his? You know he’s just waiting for someone to give it to him…”

This can go on for some time. And it fucking kills me every time. It would not be as funny if he could actually hear us, because obviously men aren’t use to hearing that shit and would probably be flattered. One time there was a dude bent over looking in his engine that had stalled at the end of her alley. She said,

“Look at the way he’s bent over, showing off that sweet dumper. Like we’re really supposed to think his car just happened to break down, right there in the alley where we can all see him…”

The best thing about it is the absurdity of the whole thing. The guy is just trying to go about his day. Get to work, fix his car, cross the street, whatever. And there’s some woman just picking apart every aspect of him, making every move he makes about her, and what she (ostensibly) wants.  And that’s the brilliance of it. It’s not revolutionary, but it does such an amazing job of pointing out how dumb and absurd and dehumanizing street harassment really is. And I love her for it.