even stowe has dirty old men

i was sitting at my friend's little cafe in stowe today, working on the coffee shop stuff. i was in the throws of putting together the "capital investment list" for the business plan. basically i was sitting in the midst of three or four commercial kitchen equipment catalogues and newsflyers, pricing out stuff that i'm going to need.... lists being made. pen in hand. brow furrowed.

the place was crowded with the noon lunch rush and one older gentlemen came over to my table after a while and leaned into it, looking over the catalogues.

"i can't help but notice that you're looking at commercial kitchen equipment. i work up at the mount mansfeild resort and have been in the hospitality and tourism industry for seventeen years."

he asks what my project is and then proceeds to tell me about the high-end catering companies he's run and the Atlanta, Georgia coffee shop chain he had, like, twenty years ago... "organic way before organic was hip..." (organic should not be considered hip. it should be considered an absolute fucking necessity, moron)

so, as he's leaning over the table puffing out his ego and his bad breath is wafting into my darling yogurt parfait, i notice that his gaze keeps moving down my face and into my tank top... like, right into my tank top. up and down. down and up.

so when he asks me if there's anything he could do to help with what i'm doing, why - i ask myself - didn't i say that what he could do to help would be to stop leaning over my workspace and checking out my boobs. they aren't even big boobs. they're tiny, little boobs.

i came so close to saying it... actually opened my mouth and then just shut it.

i'm way too polite for my own good.