Mobile

What is it about people ( read as "guys") picking up telemarketing gigs or working as street-supporters who bark "don't you even have a minute for the environment?", posing as pavement-pounding petition-toters asking passers-by to metaphorically "stand" for this or that....and then using this position to bombard others with inappropriate, lest I say awkward, romantic insinuations? I can't imagine boasting this much bravado myself, whether genuine or contrived. The most unsettling fact about the nature of this cornering tactic is that I, regardless of the day's mood, sensibility, mindset, physical or mental wanderings, inevitably ALWAYS get caught like a deer in the proverbial headlight. And I am certain...CERTAIN...I do not lead on in any way that I am in search of some mindless unfamiliar suitor. Because I frankly don't have time.

My impetus for inquiry: while aimlessly strolling to the train to make my way home recently I was approached by aforementioned petition-toting persons hoping to get my John Hancock on an Alameda County issue in the upcoming election. I asserted politely that I just moved here and am not registered to vote in CA ( ...so please leave me alone). I passed a few phrases back and forth with the dude with balls (henceforth referred as "dude with balls", sometimes "d.w.b.") and signaled that I was ready to get movin' again. Thanksbutnothanks. Ironically dude with balls identified this as his time to lurch in on the prey and tackle- "why don't I give you my number and we can have a drink. You can put it in your cell phone..."
I froze in place when I should have been trotting swiftly out of the way of oncoming traffic...."uuhhhh". I reached for my cell phone reluctantly.
"Fine" I thought, "I'll just take his number real cool-like and stroll away like its nothin' then delete the atrocity outright and pronto."

Glitch, and further fodder for my justified frustration at such circumstances: due to the advent and proliferation of the cellular phone, the mobile, one cannot remain anonymous anymore; one cannot screen, avoid, or dodge. Due to the nature of the cellular phone, that is one with out cords or lines, one is assumed to be carrying it on one's person at all times. After all its just a tiny cell. Additionally, and most unfortunately, I always forget the bait-and-switch tactic used by dudes with balls so that they don't have to ask for your number...here it comes:

"OK now call me and then I'll have your number" d.w.b. says while digging his cell phone out of his messenger bag.......F! my mind says to my heart.

Chalk me up to a six-point-buck all taxidermy-ed and hung on the wall. I'd been caught. And slaughtered. And what's more its the price I pay too often for being polite; for daring to have sympathy for the twenty-something manual laborer, for insinuating support for the cause and explaining away my reason not to act...

As I walked away I slapped my own wrist for my inability to be a d.w.b. myself. What's so hard about saying " uh no thanks you're not my type. you can't even form sentences and I'm pretty sure you're stoned." ??? Further punishment always reinforces my own temporary self-loathing: repeated texts and phone calls.
Perhaps from now on it would be in my best interest to avoid the road altogether so as not to be caught in the headlights. Forget what's in my nature and err on the side of defending myself for the sake of staying "mobile".