I Just Wanna Stop

Trivia for today: Woodward Ave. in Detroit, Michigan, carries the designation M - 1, because it was the first paved road anywhere.

About 15 years ago or so, when I was working at the U, I had to attend a department wedding. This was in the height of my Black Wardrobe days, but the bride felt it necessary to ask that I not wear black to her wedding. Puhleeze, people. This isn't the 1950s! Who gets offended when black is worn to a wedding anymore, especially when you know that person wears only black? It's obviously not meant as a statement of some sort against the wedding, although it should have been. *eyes rolling* You'll all be happy to know that I didn't wear black, but my dress was extremely olive with black print, so there. ;-)

The wedding was for one of the profs in my department who was almost old enough to be my father and the secretary (a few years older than me) in another department. He left his wife of almost 30 years for this woman. In fact, his wife came to the office one day (I must have been at lunch because I missed it, but heard all about it), stuck her head into our office and asked, "Where's Humanities?" in this "take no prisoners" voice. Tricia said, "Oh, hi Karen.: and gave directions to Humanities, knowing full well why Karen was looking for Humanities. We all wish we had been a fly on the wall in Humanities that day.

The story really happened at the wedding. Being a bunch of academics there were no dancers in the group and they certainly weren't playing anything I wanted to dance too, so a bit into the evening (after dinner), we were all standing around in a circle outside as it was a nice evening and chatting. One of my Economists who was (probably still is) Indian and about my age. He might have asked me out previously, but I had always said No as he was very right wing and not my type at all. He's standing next to me and at one point reaches behind me and pinches my ass. He thought he escaped unnoticed, except for my friend Pat. She saw his arm go behind me, me jump and my eyes get really big. I didn't say anything as I didn't want to cause a ruckus at the wedding, but Pat came into the office on Monday and said, "So, Parth pinched you on the butt?" I looked at her and said, "You saw it?" She acknowledged that she caught the gist of his movement. I still didn't want to make a fuss, but then Pat said something to Parth, he denied completely and then turned around and immediately called me and essentially threatened me telling me that I better not be telling anybody because nobody was going to believe a secretary over a professor. I WAS PISSED then. Up to that point I was willing to let it go, but don't threaten me, asshole. Everybody in my department believed me, of course, particularly, since Pat saw it happen, but I knew if it got elevated to Personnel that I wouldn't have won because it's true that at the U, a staff member's word will not be taken over a professor's.

Parth and I had many run-ins over the years that we both worked there. He was a definite chauvinist and didn't like that I spoke my mind or give in to him because he was male. In my last year there, I had my own office with a door that closed and everything. I worked on salaries and such things, but rarely closed the door, just because that's not my style (not like the admin for a different department who would lock herself in her office for HOURS to do the semesterly payroll, even though we had departments of a very similar size and I could do my payroll in about 30 minutes). One day though I was changing clothes to go out walking or something and obviously closed my door. Someone knocked and I said, "Just a minute." When I opened the door, it was Parth and he proceeded to yell at me for closing my door, as if I were doing something nefarious and as if he were my boss. I just looked at him, and said, "I was changing my clothes. What do you want?" The stupid thing is that even after he pinched my ass and generally treated me like dog dung, he would ask me out occasionally and get offended when I'd say No. Bloody hell, I was single, not desperate and stupid!!!