Today, I snapped at a man for cutting in front of me in the pharmacy line.
I was standing back where I was supposed to be while the woman in front of me was getting her meds. Like most pharmacies, mine has you wait like 10 feet back from the counter in an attempt to protect patient privacy.
While I was waiting, a man sidled up, looked at me, and then wandered up to the counter. The (male) clerk stopped what he was saying to the patient in front of me, looked at him, and asked, “Did you have a question?”
“No, I have a prescription,” said the idiot man “My name is [X]”. He had an accent, and between that and his name, my guess was that he was from the Middle East. Might explain his casual disregard for my presence, idk.
“You need to step back for patient privacy,” the clerk said, gesturing towards where I was standing. I was parked right next to the sign that said “line starts here.” There was no one else in line.
The man looked at the clerk. Looked at me. We made eye contact. He looked at the clerk. Walked over to me.
“Dude, I was here first,” I said. Loudly, both because I was surprised by the rudeness and because I wanted to draw attention to this guy’s shitty behavior. I’m a big believer in the power of shame.
The (male) pharmacy clerk looked up at the man, then at me. He did not say anything, despite clearly seeing what had happened. I figured this was just going to be yet another situation where a woman standing up for herself has to do it alone. Frustrating, but not surprising.
Idiot man turned around slowly and said, “What did you say to me?” Literally looking down his nose at me since he was at least a foot taller than me. He seemed in disbelief that a short, fat, ugly woman would dare speak to him.
I repeated, louder, “I was here first. The line is behind me.”
Idiot man said, “I am in a hurry,” as if it were obvious I had nowhere important to be. He shrugged and turned back around.
Before I could really react to that beyond briefly contemplating murder, a (female) clerk stepped up to the counter and called out, “I can help who’s next!”
Idiot man stepped forward. The fucking audacity. I reminded myself I would not like prison.
Female clerk said sharply, “No, not you, that lady was here first.”
I don’t know how long she’d been watching the interaction or where she’d come from, but damn, it turned out that I wasn’t alone in taking a tiny stand against this guy’s shitty behavior after all!
I stepped around the idiot man and shot him a smile over my shoulder. He did not smile back. When I got to the counter, I whispered a quick thanks to the (female) clerk for shutting him down. She smiled, shrugged, and whispered, “If you hadn’t said anything to him, I probably would have ignored him too.”
Lessons learned from this encounter:
1. Men will not call out another man’s misogyny even if it happens right in front of them
2. There are, however, women watching and taking their cues when you stand up for yourself, even if it might not seem like it at first.