The Disgusted Look

"We interact with a lot of Asian Americans, you can't keep accusing them of being either spies and/or terrorists."
"I think you misunderstand that the main portion of modern American patriotism is xenophobia, you see the Chinese--"
"--No I've heard your explanation before. But there are over a billion of them, I don't see why they would need to make *us* into slaves."


Today I received one of, if not the, most disgusted looks I've ever seen. I'm sure anyone reading this has probably had the experience of someone looking at them similarly, and you know how harrowing of an experience it can be.

This particular stare-down came in the cafeteria at work. I was wandering around checking out what there was to eat and examining the goods. Well, let's take a step back here, folks.

Yes, I check women out. All the time. As a red-blooded American man it is my prerogative, nay my duty, to oggle every halfway decent woman that crosses my path. I don't feel any need to hide this or make excuse for it. I was raised in a community in which manners were of great importance. There is no greater flattery than to properly look over a woman. Not to be confused with imitation which is supposedly the sincerest form of flattery, but that saying doesn't make any sense because most men are not inspired to imitate the women they admire.

Basically politeness trumps political correctness, and it is polite to check out women. The reverse is true as well. I don't know any men who are put off by a lady giving them the old hairy eyeball. I can't tell you how many times I am performing and I can just feel a woman's gaze gently traversing my torso. It's only polite.

So I am walking by a woman I had never seen before and I was just taking a gander. As I passed her I turned back a little to check the view from the rear. This woman didn't mind, she was obviously loving it. As I look back up I see this woman who works at the cafeteria walking across my path.

She was a woman of horrible disposition, quintessentially an old black hag. And she delivereth the most shaming glare I've caught in rememberable history. Her ugly face was contorted into an absolute scowl, it turned over itself almost like a snarl. Her half-toothed mouth was slightly agape and the florescent overhead lights reflected off the coating of saliva that ran from her bottom lip to the recesses of her unlovable pie-hole.

I was nearly floored by the minor shock of the contrast between the attractiveness I was just observing to this streaking comet of ugliness and meanness in front of me. In actuality this woman may not be as repulsive as she seemed, but a combination of proximity to such good looking women and a generally scolding disposition did her no favors.

As she slithered past me, her eyes remained locked right on me in a blatant stare. She took no regard in looking where she was going, instead chose to exclusively make unholy eye contact with me. The entire time her head rocked slightly to either side in a very subtle "no" gesture, but not as resolute as someone, say, declining a piece of gum, but rather more like a subdued shaking--as if you had slowed down footage of someone with Parkinson's to one-third the speed.

I immediately became indignant. I have checked out no less than thousands of women, and believe it or not, they all survived. I have nothing to hide and nothing to prove, but the way this wretched old cafeteria worker looked at me you'd think I was some mass murderer or an arsonist of sacred shrines. To be perfectly honest, getting disgusted looks is a part of my everyday life, but this one stood out to me--which should say something in itself.

Out of pure surprise I had ceded her the first few seconds, in which I must have looked like a deer in headlights. As I came to my senses I returned her stare. I looked into those glassy, condescending eyes and projected nothing but the impression of knowing and indifference: that I know she is glaring at me, but more importantly don't care.

Then came the inevitable point in which two intersecting vessels have fully passed one another. To show that I in fact was truly unrepentant and unrattled by her Gorgon gaze, I took the bold move of taking a sharp right so now I was walking in the same direction as her. For a few steps she continued to glare at me as I walked behind her, but it was clearly physically awkward because she had to turn her whole body to accommodate the 180-degree scope of her at this point ridiculous gesture. She seemed to have some form of mild hunch, maybe caused by osteoporosis, so the glare had to not only be steered not only straight behind her but up and over her slight hunch. I confidently strut behind her, only unlocking our stares to shoot a glance to other young women on either side of us. I even tossed a "Papa likes" at one woman, just to add insult to injury. I have to believe this got under her skin even more, though facially it was impossible to tell--she had maxed out her awfulness already.

Finally the terrible old woman turned her head and retreated into whatever troll-cave she works within inside the recesses of the cafeteria. Another victory and a sign that etiquette is not dead after all.

Chernesky out.