Crossing the line

(I've been sitting on this minor rant for a while. Enough time has gone by that I'm not actively angry about it any more, but I still think the experience is worth sharing.)

It's early June, 2015, and I'm looking for dorm appliances for my college-bound niece at our local Bartell Drugs. In the next aisle over, an old man -- probably in his eighties, tall, skinny, with wavy gray hair and glasses -- sidles up to a Bartell's clerk in a red vest. "You're working late," he says jovially. She stares at him.

So far, there's nothing really untoward in the exchange. He could just be an old family friend. But something about it doesn't feel quite right. And while still looking through the rice cookers and electric teakettles, I can sense that the conversation in the next aisle is already getting strained. I don't hear everything he says, but I notice the old man is blowing raspberries with his mouth, a weird, off-putting compulsive act. And when he gets a little too close to the clerk and says, "You're very pretty, though," in a tone that has nothing to do with being polite or complimentary, I suddenly have the sensation of my stomach being flooded with ice. I know what I'm witnessing isn't a friendly conversation, or even playful banter. It's harassment.

The clerk knows it too. She snaps into him immediately. "You were already told that if you ever came back in here again to bother me or anyone else, you'd be banned from this store," she says, loudly enough to be heard by other customers. "I want you out of here right now."

And as I watch, the old man's demeanor changes completely. His tone and expression switch from lascivious to innocent in less time than it takes some sports cars to get from 0 to 60, and he begins to protest, gently, that he doesn't understand, that his words must have been misinterpreted, that he's done nothing wrong. And I can feel myself getting angry. I've seen this behavior before, and I've seen it often, because the people who regularly get away with harassment have discovered that it works for them.

Let's just say that it didn't work for him that day.

The manager on duty got a full report of what I'd witnessed. I also indicated that I'd be happy to make a statement to the local police, backing up the clerk, if she chose to press charges. Separately, I sent a message to the Bartell Drugs corporate offices reporting what I saw and repeating my offer to speak to the police if necessary. (They later indicated to me that, while the clerk did not press charges, the man in question had been permanently banned from the premises.)

My local Bartell's did a great job of taking this case of harassment seriously and taking quick action to make sure it wouldn't happen again. Other businesses or organizations may not display as much concern. This is why I'm convinced it's vital for everyone to report every case of harassment whenever it's witnessed, and to as many people as possible -- managers, corporate, local police -- until someone takes the report seriously and acts on it. I know it's uncomfortable to do this, and that most people would prefer to look the other way and pretend nothing happened. But harassers have been emboldened by years of people looking away. In fact, they depend on it. The way this particular old man operated, I wouldn't be surprised to discover that he'd successfully harassed people for decades, with little or no consequence to himself.

To my mind, there's an interesting behavioral correlation between harassers and shoplifters. Both are curious to see what they can get away with, and neither want to pay the real price for their activities. And just as stores prosecute shoplifters for theft, serial harassers need to be told that they've crossed the line, to be made just as uncomfortable as they make their victims, to understand that there's a real, steep social cost to their actions. Otherwise they'll go right on acting creepy and playing innocent for as long as they're allowed to get away with it.