The Stranger Who Shamed Me: Vol 1

Thank you to those who submitted a story! I fully understand it is difficult to talk about these things, especially when you have successfully managed to block them from your memory. 

Here are a few great ones to start the healing process. I will write another entry with my own incident at a later date. If you'd like to share an incident of your own, please email it to me at thelazystandup@gmail.com.

Now, let's get through this together.   

 

Produce Police

 "I was at the grocery store grabbing some sugar snap peas from the produce bin.  I like the big fat ones, so I was hand-picking them and putting them in the plastic bag.  A woman creeped up on me and said, "There is a utensil there for a reason." 

I was confused by her statement, so I politely said, "What was that?" and she repeated, but now in a more hostile tone, 

"There are utensils there for a reason.  You're using your hands and now I don't want them anymore.  I was going to get some peas, and now I don't."  

The word "utensil" was what threw me off, but I quickly realized she was referring to the plastic tongs on the shelf near the other veggies.  

Something seemed off about her to me; maybe it was partly because I couldn't see her eyes because she was wearing sunglasses in a grocery store.  It was clear in just that 30 second interaction that she was a very bitter woman, but logic was out the window because she somehow managed to make me feel awful.  She may have been right, I probably should have been using the plastic tongs, but her approach was so unpleasant and off-putting.  I've seen her around a couple times since the grocery store and I'm tempted to shout out, "Hey crazy lady, see you in the produce section!"

-- Mary B.

Keep Off the Grass

"My husband Tom and I totally got bitched out by strangers once, and it still makes my cheeks flush with hot embarrassment to this day.

We were taking our engagement pictures in Lincoln Park in Chicago, and were trying to play along with our photographer who was being "creative."  At one point, he wanted us to lay in this grassy area near the lagoon with the Chicago skyline in the background.  We really did NOT want to do it, but were nearing the end of our time and thought, this picture could turn out to be hilarious. So not only did we lay in the grass, but Tom got on his stomach and I got on my stomach . . on his back.

So, we (30 year old adults) are laying stacked on each other at 11:00 am in the middle of a public park when these two older women start SCREAMING at us to get off the grass.  At first, we didn't even realize they were yelling at us, we thought they were just yelling (old people are crazy).  And our photographer (Habib) starts to shoo them away and keeps taking pictures of us, grinning like mental patients while mumbling to each other "are they yelling at us?"

Apparently, there were small signs right near the path that said they were trying to grow these natural grasses in the prairie landscape, and to kindly keep of the grass, and here we are throwing easily 300 plus pounds of engaged bliss on top of the seedlings so we can get a "creative" picture.  It was HORRIBLE. 

The worst part was these women followed us for the last 20 minutes of the photo shoot yelling at us about how horrible we were to abuse the park that was there for everyone and how irresponsible our photographer was.  Ugh.  I still want to die."

-- Molly A.

Pretty Blue Car

"In high school, I drove a little blue car. It was a breeze to parallel park, and I was kind of a pro at getting street parking even in busy areas.

One day, I returned to my car, which I had parked on a residential street in Uptown, Minneapolis, to find an angry note on the windshield.

It began: “To the owner of the pretty blue car…”.

It went on to describe how the author had stood in his house and watched me hit his car while parallel parking (for the record: no damage whatsoever to my car or the surrounding ones). He had taken my license plate number and would probably be calling the police.

He went on to berate suburban teen girls for coming to his neighborhood and selfishly taking up all of the parking.

As a rule-following kind of girl, I was disturbed. I stood by the car and started to cry. Eventually, he saw me crying and came out of the house… not to console me, but to reiterate in person my laundry list of parking wrongdoings.

Upsetting, yes. But in the end - I like to think because of the crying - my police record did remain clean."

-- Emily H.