(Is “go home” bad? Because I like being home)
At the grocery store, a woman and I stared across a space that was too small for both of us at once.
I stopped and gestured her to go.
She scurried and apologized.
“You’re allowed to take up space!” I told her.
She shook her head and answered, “Not too much.”
I want to take up space.
I am so tired of the expectation that I should be small. That I am not allowed to consume space. That I should subordinate my needs to those of others.
I’m done.
Mr T and I argue about this when we are walking. He maintains a hyperawareness of his surroundings, including what’s behind him.
If someone is walking behind us, he will squeeze over so that person can pass.
I refuse to think about who’s walking behind us.
If I am driving, I need to be aware not just of what’s in front of me and to the side of me but also behind me, but walking?
No.
The person behind me can do what I do when I am behind someone and want to pass: She can say, “Excuse me.”
But I am not going to live my life anticipating and reacting to what someone else might want.
We were on the London Underground from the airport to town. The coach was getting more and more full, but the young man across us had a backpack on one seat and his legs sprawled open so wide that he took up a total three seats.
Nobody asked him to pull in his legs so they could sit. Or to move the backpack.
I probably would not have asked, either. For one, it was a foreign country and I didn’t know what the rules were, but also, this was 15 years ago when I had not reached Woman of a Certain Age Who No Longer Gives a Shit stage.
(I love this stage.)
I watched in fascination as new passengers boarded and stood rather than say anything to this scowling jerk.
I used to stand instead of asking someone to move a coat or bag on a bus seat or at the airport.
No more.
Now I (politely) ask the person to move the item so I can sit.
The purpose of a seat is for human butts, not for bags.
I also have reached the stage of Saying Something to the seatsavers on Southwest Airlines.
Southwest does not assign seats. You board by group. There is no saving of seats. If you are in Group A and your spouse is Group C, you probably won’t sit together.
Yet people save seats.
Last time I was on Southwest, a woman near the front had her bag in the seat. I asked her to move it because I just didn’t feel like walking all the way to the back.
She refused, telling me she was saving the seat.
I didn’t care enough to fight, but I did say out loud that there is no saving on Southwest.
It was a moral victory.
And as I write this, I think about Patriarchy Chicken, which I started playing years ago.
I wrote about it years ago.
When I was searching for the post, this one also came up: Another “Go Big or Go Home.”
Looks like I have a one-track mind.
Looks like I am still angry about this issue.
Texan in Exile 