I relate to this S O M U C H. ❤️ Especially because it feels like so many people are unwilling to take a stand about anything or stand up for anyone. Anything that touches my sense of justice goes right through me, and then I have a really hard time picking my battles or reining myself in!

During the early part of the pandemic, when even rural Ohio was mostly cooperating with the mask mandates, I was grocery shopping, and I saw a tall, well-built, angry-looking dude moving through the aisles, unmasked obviously, getting in other people’s personal space and shoving their carts around as he just bulldozed his way down the aisle. He wasn’t shopping, he was fucking with people, and I could see he was mostly picking elderly women, and other people were noticing and just getting out of his way.

It instantly made me fucking furious, and as I’m reaching the end of the aisle, I’m filling with rage and trying to figure out what to do (get a manager?? idfk), his eyes land on me (another petite feminine victim!) and he comes my way, shoving my cart backwards into my torso as he pushes past me into the empty aisle, muttering curses and slurs. My anger became shock for a moment - holy fucking shit, did that really just happen?!? - and then it was fucking on.

I looped out of that aisle the opposite direction and came straight at him down the next one, and you should have seen the look of surprise on his face when he realized someone was coming for him. 😂 I went off. “You think you can just go through the store fucking with people???” Bystanders stop to watch, dude puts his hands up and starts backing away. “You think you can push people around and shove carts into them???” His angry demeanor instantly vanishes with people watching, and he says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about!! Leave me alone!!” and fucking flees the scene. I realize that none of these people had seen him shoving anyone and all think I’m the crazy one, so I resist the urge to follow and harangue him straight out the door. I am not trying to get banned from the store for fighting. 😂🤦

I go back to my shopping, and it suddenly occurs to me that I had really taken a risk there. Dude could have been armed, or he could have just pushed me backwards into a steel shelf or onto the concrete floor - I definitely could have been seriously injured or worse!

It would be great if I could say that the lesson I learned from that incident was to be a little more cautious when confronting large men, but really, it just made me further committed to physical fitness and self defense. 🤷😂