How to recognize a damsel NOT in distress

Note to all my neighbors who saw me fiddling under my car's hood one sunny afternoon earlier this week:

Thank you for stopping by.  It warms my heart.  Really.

And no, it doesn't bother me in the least that you didn't stop by to say hello.  Or that you didn't want to know how my holidays were going.

In other words, I fully recognize that your response to seeing some long-haired white-looking chick with a ratchet in her hand and her car's guts exposed (and okay, okay, I admit it.  I was wearing my big ole jeans. There may have been a SMALL amount of crack as well) to the cold December air was totally instinctive:

"Oh, my goodness.  Are you okay, miss?"

"Hello there!  Ya need help?

and, oh, my favorite:

"HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE?!"

I get it, okay? I totally do.  Doesn't mean I appreciate it.

You people are just lucky it was snot-inducingly cold.  Tit-numbing cold.  Tears-down-frozen-cheeks cold.  Which made me just nod and go, "heh! I'm fine!" and get back to work on my car and forget about all the times I've seen guys in wifebeaters headfirst into their engine blocks, Coronas precariously balanced on a sideways tire rim in the very same parking lot, neighbors ambling by without a second glance.

Yeah.  You're lucky I was excited to finally be fixing my own car instead of paying someone else to do it like some hapless single chick and didn't care that the reason I was getting such attention was because of my long non-butch hair, two coats of mascara and ... oh, yes! MY VAGINA.

Otherwise, you woulda gotten the death-rays. 

That is all.  Thank you.

Comments

[M. R. Sellars]

Well said. :)