blogger profile

Jessica Leigh Lebos

When Jessica Leigh graduated with a degree in creative writing, she figured she'd be slinging lattes for the rest of her life, so she shaved her head, moved into a VW bus and set off for Alaska. Good thing the van broke down just north of San Francisco, because she just hates cold weather. Her baris...

READ MORE

My Feminist Husband

Jessica Leigh Lebos

As a mother of two sliding down the backside of my 30s, I don’t get much action from the gents these days. My flirting skills are rusty. Don’t get me wrong - I’m an attractive woman, HOT even, especially when I’m all dolled up for work (got to keep up with all the young babes working in the skirt! Savannah office!) but I’m slow to realize when a man is hitting on me. Probably because it happens about once a decade.

So that’s my excuse for entertaining the loser standing behind me in line at the merchandising table at the Widespread Panic show last night. He was older, maybe in his 50s, looking like any of the other gray-haired ponytails milling around the Johnny Mercer Theater. He innocently mentioned that he loved a woman in a hat.

I agreed that more women these days should rock fedoras before they go back out of style, then confessed I wear them because most of my days are bad hair days. We chatted until it was my turn to ask the clerk to see both t-shirt offerings, which I held up to my chest to see which size fit best.

“Oooh! You’re driving me crazy!” the guy giggled. “Buy the tight one! Here, want me to hold it up?”

I was so shocked that I couldn’t respond. Did I misunderstand or did this guy just sexually harrass me? My husband, standing on my other side, looked around at him and put his arm around my waist. The guy was undeterred. 

“Oh no, don’t get the large! You need the band’s logo stretched out!”

I found my voice. “Are you kidding me? We were having a nice conversation and now you’re saying these things to me in front of my husband? You’re a freak, dude.” I finished my transaction and started to walk away.  

This is where it gets REALLY good: After the jerk asked the clerk for WPs latest DVD, my husband let go of me and sidled up next to him.

“I’d like to see you get all oiled up and watch that naked.”

“What?” said the guy, shocked.

“Yeah, man, you’d look really good shaking it up to that.” My husband flicked the DVD cover. The guy looked as confused as I felt, until I realized what he was doing:

“Oh, am I making you uncomfortable? Do sexual remarks from a stranger make you feel embarrassed?” My husband looked him straight in the eye. “Well, that’s exactly what you just did to my wife.”

He came back to me and I gave him the biggest smooch as the creep slinked off back to his seat.

It takes a real man to do something like that, don’t you agree? So much more awesome than pulling some macho crap and punching him.