I finally said “No!”

If there is a rough side to me, it’s my husband & family who know about it. For I’ve always been an agreeable type of person to strangers. Because they scare me: I have a very low self esteem! And because I have no way of knowing what they’d say behind my back. So I walk by them cautiously, trying not to do anything to upset them; smile at their jokes (even if 99% of the time I think they were corny); and I make sure their dresses aren’t out hanging if they felt like going in before me!

But yesterday evening, I said “no”, literally!. The funny thing about the incident was, my adversaries were 4 people altogether (3 men and a girl) the sight of whom would normally make me bound “like an Adajio Dancer”, as Bertie Wooster would say! And I didn’t even need the seat that bad. But I not only protested firmly, but screamed “I don’t give a shit!” (literally! just like that!) when they asked me if I could take the next taxi because they were “together” (and the taxi only holds four people + driver).

I still don’t understand how that happened. It wasn’t that dark, there weren’t too many people around, and I wasn’t even mad. I thought that funny: my swearing at a bunch of guys (and a girl) infront of a driver I’ve probably came across a hundred times and taxi assistants who have thus far seen me as a quite person in whose mouth ‘butter won’t melt’ (as the saying goes)! After patting my shoulder with “I didn’t know you had it in you” and giggling nervously, I tried to figure out why I snapped the way I did. The answer can only be one of two things: The cuteness of the couple who later sat next to me (out of whom the male part of the duo apologized after so much whimpering, while his little girlfriend gave me a nasty look) reminding me how pretty people have always made me feel like I didn’t belong here the same way they do (Ethiopians refer to themselves as the “prettiest” people in the world and I’ve been told otherwise, or atleast made to feel) OR I was just tired of having folks walk all over me by intimidating me in their big numbers. Something like what Roza Parks must have felt that fateful morning, when she said “no” to giving up her seat resulting in the biggest Bus Boycott in American history. “No” to intimidation, ”no” to being considered something less just because you aren’t *like* everybody else (stunted, in this case), yassir NO to segregation!! Or so I’d like to think ;-).

Only time would tell if i can keep it up!