Menacing

 

“That was magical….” LS sighs, turning on the shower, letting the hot water cascade over her after our swim.

“Yeah, it was…” I agree… “except for The Perv watching over us.”

“I found his whistling to be a bit menacing,” Teresa says, leaning her head back into the shower to gather water for shampoo. “You know, there we were, just three women in the pool and here’s this Man, this Large White Guy, up there on his throne whistling at us. I don’t know if it was conscious or not, but to be whistling at three women in the pool…. well…I found it a bit menacing. Men are so used to taking up all the space. And that whistling, it was definitely a manifestation of this.”

“WOW!” I exclaim. “That is so true. I knew he was particularly creepy today, but I always think that he is. (Regular readers may remember that The Perv informed me about a year ago that ‘I can see through your suit; you might consider replacing it.’)  “So, of course, today, I noticed the whistling, I just didn’t pinpoint this as a behavior that was menacing today, but you’re right. It was!”

          And menace is in the air, right? Esp. from Fat White Men in charge. They have all power right now. Or at least they think so. And as women in this country, we need to let them know that they don’t.
          Last weekend, Teresa had told me how this Big White Guy that she had to share a lane with cuz there weren’t any other openings told her that she had to watch out for him cuz his backstroke was wide and if she didn’t watch out, he might hit her. She’d fired back, “I have to watch out for you! Listen Dude, you need to watch out for me. Not the other way around.”

          Her large brown eyes flashed with anger. “After last week’s election, watch out. I’m mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore.”

          Okay, she didn’t actually say that famous line to me, but this anger and frustration at the world of Trump is palpable. I move through it in the pool when large men get in the lane with me, taking up all the space. Cuz you know, they can. It’s all about them. I’m invisible. Why on this same day that Teresa is talking about, down at the Richmond Plunge, when it was so crowded, I got into a lane and signaled the man already in the water to split the lane with me. He’d acknowledged my presence. We swam a couple of laps just fine, I on the right side of the black line, he on the left side when WHAM, he crashed right into me.

          “Oh…sorry sorry,” he’d mumbled, before turning and swimming on. I was left fuming. What the hell was the matter with this guy? Did he just forget he’d been swimming laps? Or, was is something more menacing. That palpable right-wing fog that was spreading all over the country. Women were, once again, very much second-class citizens. No rights over their own bodies. No options to ‘take care of it.’

          But hey! Why should I care? I’m an old crone. It’s not an issue for me anymore. (Yeah, Trump said that. But I’m not gonna get into all the insulting misogynist things that come spewing out of his mouth every minute of every day right now. You’ve all heard them. You know what I’m talking about)

          “That word menacing…” I nod toward Teresa as we're out of the showers now, throwing on our clothes. “It’s such a good word!”

          She smiles. “It is. Menacing…hey Men- a- cing…I never thought about that till now!”

          We all laugh.  "I’m gonna look up the etymology of the word later."

        "Speaking of entymology," LS contributes, "have you heard of the word petrichore?"

       "No," we both respond. 

        "Petrichore is the smell of rain. The word comes from the Greek words for 'petra', meaning stone, and 'ichor' which in Greek mythology refers to the golden fluid that flows in the veins of the immortals."

        "Wow!" we exclaim.

         "Let's hope there's no ichor in the veins of The Perv!" I cry.

        "Oh, he can't be an immortal!" LS pronounces.

        "Yes, I'm sure he's not. Unless he's one of those immortals from Hades that's come to our sphere to torture us with his whistling!"

          We all laugh, cuz  for now, menace is not in our sphere. We are three women laughing, dressing, and commiserating over the state of the world.

          Let him whistle. I don’t care. I’m mad as hell ...and..... I’m not gonna take it anymore!

Menacing Entymology