I had to take a leak during a movie at a theater I'd been to dozens of times, so I got out of my seat and went towards the restrooms. On one of the benches dividing the men's and women's restrooms, was a guy whom I suspected was just waiting on his girlfriend. I wasn't concerned.
As I entered the restroom it was plain I was the only one in there, and I took the urinal in the middle all to myself. I wasn't concerned. Seconds after the stream started, I hear the door swing open and footsteps behind me, just as it had happened hundreds of times before, I wasn't concerned. My face gets shoved into the wall in front of me, I get pushed into the urinal and my pants drop to my knees as I try to push away from the wall. I was concerned.
Punches were coming in to my face and head. I fight for enough space to turn around, and I see the face of the guy that was on the bench outside. Just then did it dawn on me that I was being attacked, targeted by some ******* that thought he was the lion and I was just a god damn goat or something, just waiting to be devoured. I pissed all over the floor as I fought back, completely enraged at the thought of being humiliated like that. Violence was the only thing on my mind at that point.
I fought him off long enough that he decided to fight another day, he bolted through the door and out of the theater. I pulled my pants up, left the restroom and saw everybody acting normally, they didn't have the slightest idea of what had just happened. I had what would amount to the saddest and yet perhaps the most important realization of my entire life, I am alone.
He never spoke a word. Didn't demand money or anything, I'll never know what he wanted. Maybe he just wanted to feel bigger than somebody else. In the end all he got from me were pissed on clothes and some bruises.
This happened years ago, and I had never given it any thought, simply because doing so made me angry. Quite a while after the fact, out of the blue I just think, "What if he had a weapon?" A very obvious question that for some reason or another I had never pondered. The possiblilties scared me.
Lesson #1 - No more urinals. I'll go ahead and let everyone think I'm a woman for that, they have no idea how helpless you are in that position, I do.
Lesson #2 - Yes, it really can happen to you.
As I entered the restroom it was plain I was the only one in there, and I took the urinal in the middle all to myself. I wasn't concerned. Seconds after the stream started, I hear the door swing open and footsteps behind me, just as it had happened hundreds of times before, I wasn't concerned. My face gets shoved into the wall in front of me, I get pushed into the urinal and my pants drop to my knees as I try to push away from the wall. I was concerned.
Punches were coming in to my face and head. I fight for enough space to turn around, and I see the face of the guy that was on the bench outside. Just then did it dawn on me that I was being attacked, targeted by some ******* that thought he was the lion and I was just a god damn goat or something, just waiting to be devoured. I pissed all over the floor as I fought back, completely enraged at the thought of being humiliated like that. Violence was the only thing on my mind at that point.
I fought him off long enough that he decided to fight another day, he bolted through the door and out of the theater. I pulled my pants up, left the restroom and saw everybody acting normally, they didn't have the slightest idea of what had just happened. I had what would amount to the saddest and yet perhaps the most important realization of my entire life, I am alone.
He never spoke a word. Didn't demand money or anything, I'll never know what he wanted. Maybe he just wanted to feel bigger than somebody else. In the end all he got from me were pissed on clothes and some bruises.
This happened years ago, and I had never given it any thought, simply because doing so made me angry. Quite a while after the fact, out of the blue I just think, "What if he had a weapon?" A very obvious question that for some reason or another I had never pondered. The possiblilties scared me.
Lesson #1 - No more urinals. I'll go ahead and let everyone think I'm a woman for that, they have no idea how helpless you are in that position, I do.
Lesson #2 - Yes, it really can happen to you.
