Men who do that horrible thing where they squeeze your hand incredibly hard to prove their dominance are the literal worst.
I have arthritis. I am 26 years old and I have arthritis, among many other health issues. I also work six days a week at a job I love selling Polish baked goods and pure raw honey.
Sure, on a daily basis I have at least one Polish person get angry at me because I'm not Polish, and one Italian person get angry at me because I'm not selling cannolis, I'm selling kolaczkis. Seriously. You don't go to McDonald's for pizza, and you don't have to be a cup of coffee to work at Starbucks. I'm just a young woman doing my job and doing it very well, i'm not doing anything wrong by being who I am and selling the things my company sells.
Anyway, one of the biggest things that irritates me is when I get harassed about our honey. The honey is all pure, raw, uncooked, unfiltered, and totally natural. We are partnered with beekeepers everywhere from the state we are based out of to Brazil. We have honey from all over the place.
People, but particularly man, love to quiz me about our honey, how it's made, and who makes it. Bees make it. Bees. Our beekeepers take care of collecting it, and my direct boss, the owner of the company, bottles it all himself. I've been to our bottling facility (it's a nice old barn on the other boss's quaint little farm).
So yesterday some *lovely* grumpy old man came by my honey stand. He was looking at the honey, so I started to explain about it being pure and whatever.
He instantly started telling me that he couldn't trust anything I said if the honey wasn't made by Amish people. I said I'd never asked if our beekeepers were Amish or not, but that the honey was *made* by bees and collected by humans. He more or less demanded that I tell him that the honey was made by Amish people. All while he was calling me a liar and saying our honey must be made with sugar if it wasn't made by Amish people.
I explained that I would not tell him what he wanted to hear because then I actually would be lying. I also pointed out that since I was refusing to lie just to make a sale that maybe he should just try one of the samples of the honey to see for himself but it was real. Naturally, he refused. He decided to buy a bottle of our buckwheat honey. I rang up the sale and gave him his bag. He promised me that when he proved it was fake he would be back to tell me.
At that point he started muttering something about fake people and living a genuine life and only wanting to interact with real people and real things. Whatever. What a fucking looney. Finally he decided he was going, and I was glad that he would be. He held out his hand for a handshake. I don't love shaking hands, but I figured it would be the fastest way to get rid of him, so like an idiot I held out my own hand.
There was another man waiting patiently to buy four honey sticks, who's eyes went wide as I proceeded to start sobbing hysterically. This mean older man squeezed my hand so hard he made me cry. I have waited tables, been a life insurance agent, and been in customer service for years. Jerks don't make me cry. Well, at least not jerks who don't physically hurt me. I think I can be forgiven for crying just this once.
"Ouch!" I yelped as I started sobbing.
"Did I hurt you?" The mean man demanded, suddenly looking very unhappy in an entirely new way.
"I have arthritis! That was too hard! You squeezed too hard!"
I turned to the next guy in line with his four honey sticks, ignoring everything that mean man said after that point. I don't know if he was complaining or apologizing. I don't care.
As soon as the honey sticks were paid for, I left my booth and ran across the way to the pretzel stand to get a cup of ice and make an ice pack. The girl at the pretzel stand was freaked out, but gave me my ice and told me she hoped I felt better. When I turned back around I could see the mean man booking it out of the building.
I hope his little power-play taught him a lesson. His behavior was witnessed by another man in his age group, I hope he was embarrassed. I hope he was horrified. I spent the next 40 minutes crying at work, and as of today my hand is back in a heavy duty brace, and my fingers are so swollen I can't take my rings off.
Why do grown men who should know better act like that? I realize that I'm quite young and still look relatively healthy, but why would you ever squeeze some stranger's hand that hard?What are you trying to prove?
That's strange man got to hurt me and walk away because through my haze of pain I wasn't thinking about taking his information or holding him up in any way and potentially calling Security. That mean man is maybe going to do that again to somebody. Why are people like that?
I love what I do, but now I'm in a brace for I don't know how long, and I'm probably too afraid to give another handshake ever. Why would some old man who should have known better hurt me? I did nothing to deserve that. I'm physically hurt, I'm emotionally hurt, I am angry.
Fuck you mean old man. Fuck you.
