Keep tapping, or else   02.04.11

Photo by Risager

Lindsay’s shoes got some unusual attention on the bus:

A guy — maybe in his twenties – sat by me on Muni today. I was boxed in, in a two-seat row. He stared at my shoes, grey, peep-toe high heels. “Those are grey shoes,” he said. “Yup, they are,” I said, turning back to my phone. “Those are tap shoes,” he said. “No. Not tap shoes,” I said.

He looked at me intently. “Those are tap shoes,” he said. “Tap.”

“I don’t really tap,” I said, feeling, obviously, uncomfortable. “Tap,” he said again, and looked at my shoes. I had no exit strategy, so I tapped one foot, just once, hoping that this would appease him. Meanwhile, I tried to ask questions to get his mind off of my shoes “Which is your stop?” I asked, faking my best casual tone. “Van Ness,” he said. Then, “Both feet,” he said, encouragingly. I tapped both feet once. “Keep tapping,” he said. I had no choice so I kept tapping my toes, unconvinced I was safe but not knowing what else to do.

We pulled up to the Van Ness stop, and something unexpected happened. The tapping guy gave me a quick hug, then got off the train. I breathed a sigh of relief. Then he came to the window, and stared intently at me through the window. He said, “Are you tapping?” I nodded my head. He said “Keep tapping,” and watched me as the train pulled away.

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Written by Lindsay O

This entry was posted on Friday, February 4th, 2011 at 8:00 am and is filed under diaries, funny. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

5 Comments

Tara   February 4, 2011 at 11:14 am

Thanks for sharing, Lindsay. But you were a LOT nicer about this guy than I would have been.

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brandi   February 4, 2011 at 11:48 am

And when he got to his office, he slipped away to the men’s room and yanked one off real quicklike thinking about her submission to his ultimate power.

Personally, I would not have succumbed to this dude’s bullshit at. all.

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Lindsay   February 4, 2011 at 5:23 pm

Honestly, I was freaked out. I have a feeling he might have had Asperger syndrome or something similar? And I couldn’t have gotten out of the row if I had wanted to. He was way bigger than me and it seemed like that kept him relaxed so I just did it until he got off the train. But I was DEFINITELY shaken up. And the lesson I learned: I will never sit on the inside seat of a row on Muni again. SCARY!

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Matt Baume   February 4, 2011 at 8:03 pm

Sounds like a tweaker.

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Kyle   February 7, 2011 at 10:09 am

I think my girlfriend ran into this guy last week. She came home saying something about a weird foot fetish guy who was asking her weird questions about her feet then he got off at Van Ness.

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