I Was Told This Would Stop When I “Expired”

But male entitlement never expires

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I arrived at the mall early and joined the handful of people waiting to be let in. Malls aren’t generally my thing, but I was going to have to come here tomorrow with Alice to shop for some necessities that we hadn’t been successful finding elsewhere. So here I was, early on a Sunday morning, waiting to be let in so I could scope the place out and be prepared for the next day.

I stopped at a picnic table in front of the food court, putting my purse and water bottle down while I stood waiting. There was a family of four at the table behind me and a lone man at the table in front.

The man looked up from his phone when I arrived. He caught my eye and said, “That color really suits you.”

I was wearing a pair of black yoga pants and an off-the-shoulder pink top. “Thank you,” I replied, before returning my attention to the article I was reading.

The doors opened a few minutes later and everyone abandoned their picnic tables to go inside. I meandered around slowly. All the shops would remain closed until noon, but I planned to leave long before then; I was only here to get the lay of the land while it was nice and quiet, underpopulated and not yet teaming with combatting scents.