*F-BOMB ALERT* – CONTAINS (more) COARSE LANGUAGE (than usual)

Motorcycle season is still a few months away, but I think it might be time to get out my boots and leathers anyway.  In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been referred to as “dear”, “little”, and “girl”.  I’m in serious danger of losing my badass self-image.

Note I said “self-image”.  In reality, I’m probably more good-ass than badass, but I’m a loyal and happy resident of the state of delusion.  I like it here.  I’m staying as long as I can.

My image crisis started in a restaurant in Parksville, BC.  The ten-year-old (okay, fine, maybe she was eighteen) waitress called me “dear”.  Repeatedly.  Just like the group of sweet little old ladies beside me.  Granted, I don’t know if they actually were sweet.  I couldn’t overhear their conversation, so maybe they were swearing like sailors and swapping stories of their latest sexual conquests.  I kinda hope so.

But the point is, she called me “dear”.

And just like Rodney Dangerfield, I don’t get no respect.  Later at the airport baggage carousel, I was waiting for my luggage when a guy pushed past and stood right in front of me.

Hey, buddy, am I fucking invisible?

I wistfully contemplated giving him a nice solid elbow strike to the back of the head, but I had a feeling my apparent invisibility wouldn’t fool the security cameras.

Then “little” and “girl” got thrown at me at the gym.  At 5’10” and 48 years old, neither of those words have applied to me for a very long time.  I’m willing to concede that “little” might have been a comparative term since it was used by my muay thai instructor, who’s over six feet of muscle.  It wasn’t like I was going to argue with him.

But then I was waiting behind a couple of guys at the security gate to the change rooms, and one turned to the other and said, “Let the girl go first.”

I glanced around just to be sure, but I was the only female in the vicinity.  What the hell was that?  “The girl”?  Reminded me of the “good” old days, when the boss used to say, “I’ll have my girl do it.”

Just to be clear, I’m not necessarily offended by being called a girl.  In fact, one of my most treasured compliments was one I overheard a couple of years ago when I was at a show & shine (outdoor classic car show, for those who aren’t car nuts).  I was checking out a 1970 Challenger with the 426 big-block when I overheard a guy behind me:  “There’s a girl over by the car that just makes you wanna…”  His more politically correct companion interrupted with the words, “…go over and say hello.”

I checked surreptitiously, but again, I was the only female in the vicinity.  At 46, I took it as a high compliment, cheerfully ignoring the possibility that I might have misinterpreted his sentence structure and it was actually the car that made him wanna.  Hey, I don’t judge.  There were lots of cars there that made me wanna.

But I digress.  My point is, short of starting to spew f-bombs publicly (and as I mentioned before, I’m too Canadian to do that), I need to find a way to polish up my badass image.

Wonder if the gym’s dress code allows boots and leathers?