How to be Smart

"Quick Debby! he's coming!" Sarah exclaimed from behind the espresso machine. I quickly pulled up my broom and dust pan from sweeping and sprinted to the register. We had that one customer every morning, the type of guy whose pervy ways reeked from him like his body odor. Every coffee shop has these, dirty old men who see young women serving coffee with this creepy idea of somehow getting closer to them. Now I was never afraid of this customer, I ran at the warning of his arrival for the simple fact I didn't want to be touched at all by him. I wasn't ever thinking he would kill me in fact I wondered to what was his life story? Why was he so creepy in trying to flirt and touch so much? For we don't fall from grace of our first childhood days without a story that took us here. Although I never asked him much about himself, I still wondered why was he the way that he was? 
To be smart meant to me that I was never going to leave these girls whom I worked with alone with him in the shop. To be smart actually took me 27 years to get to that morning of hopping over the counter to save myself from his groping hands, for We ALL warned each other every morning of his arrival if we could, we stayed behind the counter the whole time and if we had to step out passed him for any reason we moved fast and didn't stop, many times having to dodge under his flying arms. Either way he still tried to grab us all by the waist for his idea of a "playful hug". His favorite thing of all was to put his face up next to the back our necks and shoulders to surprise us.....for if we didn't know he was there our backs were towards the entrance working and he would slide right up close to hear us scream in surprise then he would laugh. I also knew that if I directly handed him the cup of coffee that he was purchasing then he would fully grab onto my hand and cup for long awhile, trying to wink and usually making me mad so once again I learned to be smart by setting his cup on the counter then tell him it was ready. His pervy jokes, his pervy eyes and his pervy ways in trying to touch us girls was something that made us all dislike him even more. One morning I came out from the back of the shop with paper cups in arm only to get out a warning cry to Sarah, as she was marking down clearance items across from the counter before he jump on her with his arms then laughed out loud creepily. I zoomed into situation explaining "I saw him coming in fast but..." He cut me off as he whined leaning in on my face "WHY did ya make that noise? I almost scared her to death!" I nodded nicely back at him pushing my shoulder up against his chin as he kept on chuckling then I was circling Sarah to get her out of his arms at the same and we raced back into our protective counters again. Sarah and I gave each other the understanding look silently both in being alarmed and completely annoyed, she shouted back at him as we got behind the counter again "I HATE to be startled!" then she didn't speak to him again. Now there were some mornings he kept to himself not reaching, not grabbing or trying to leaning into us as we worked. (Those mornings were usually when our boss was there) And so it was one of those things I had to realize, how should I treat pervy men? How can I be smart and nice at the same time? Learning how to do all these things suddenly gave me a sense of empowerment, a sense of  protection within my own strength to not get pushed around or invaded upon. I hope that ALL women everywhere can learn this in whatever situation they are in, being smart and wise could save their life and change the world for a better place!