Superhero of Love in Training Gets Ass Kicked By The Cable Guy

A “Superhero of Love” kicks ass in the world of love.  She has a knack for loving herself and others, and has that extra boost of inner strength from being connected to the source of all love.

I consider myself a Superhero of Love in constant training.  Recently, everything in my Superhero of Love world got twisted up: I got my ass kicked by the cable guy. 

I was switching from DirecTV to Time Warner so a technician had to come to my house.  I was told he would call 30 minutes before arriving to let me know he was on the way.  Instead, I looked up when my dogs started madly barking to see a man peering through the window in my kitchen door.  I was in the middle of working and wasn’t keen on this instantly creepy surprise. 

I ushered him in and walked briskly toward the TV/cable box.  He walked slowly behind me – practically meandering -- looking around my house, into my bedroom, etc. I got right to business. I told him where all the outdoor cable locations were and motioned to my desk telling him I would be working but available for any questions. 

He sat down on the couch like he lived here, and chatted casually about life.   I just wanted to get away from him.  He sensed this and said he’d need to check the phone and internet cables, which he had seen were under my desk.  I told them there were no issues there but he insisted.  He took advantage of my needing to wait for him to ask me questions about myself.   I gave curt but friendly answers hoping to speed things along.

The phone rang and I said I had to get it.  He replied “Take your time, baby.” 

Yep, he called me “baby.” 

He ended up calling me baby over the course of his time at my house three times.  And I said nothing each and every time. 

He then went outside to check cables and dealt with a wasp nest.  He came back in and asked to wash his hands. I motioned to the kitchen sink and saw that the blender was in it. I hesitated but said he could use the bathroom.  I quickly cleaned the blender and then noticed he was taking an inordinate amount of time to clean his hands.  He was in there several more minutes in silence. 

He finally came out and then went back outside for another round with the cables and wasps.  A short while later he asked to use the “restroom” and I told him the sink was now clear.  He said he needed to use the restroom.   He went into the bathroom for several minutes and didn’t flush the toilet or turn on the water this time.  I stood silent several feet away listening to try to figure out what he was doing.

He finally came back out and sat back down on the couch, hooked up the box and said as if he was about to start watching a really great movie, “OK, let’s see if there’s any porn in here.”  I exclaimed “Whaaaaaaaaat?!”  He replied that sometimes the cable boxes have porn left on them.  I said “Well get it off if it’s there.”  He said “Well the last lady it happened to, I told her I’d take it off but she said she’d take it off later herself.”  He gave me a knowing look.  I made it clear I didn’t want it on there.

After everything was connected and he was waiting for the box to connect he mentioned porn again.  I walked away from him and said “I don’t have time for that crap.”  He replied “EVERYONE has time for PORN!” as if it were the tag line for a new game show.

A few minutes later he left, handing me his card with his personal cell number handwritten on it, warning, “But don’t tell your husband I gave you my card.  He’d be mad.”

I shut the door.  My one act of defiance during the entire incident was shutting the door without responding to his final fishing expedition. 

Superhero, my ass!

After two weeks of trying to report this to his supervisor – who closed the complaint without ever speaking to me -- I finally reached someone in the security division of Time Warner.  The investigator spoke to the technician who admitted to sitting on my couch, going to the bathroom twice, and giving me his card.   After that interview was completed, I was informed by the investigator that my claim was “unsubstantiated.”  I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach.  I noted that I would have had to have a camera running the entire time to have this documented.  He sheepishly admitted this was true.  He assured me a file was opened, and that the allegations were taken seriously.  I was dumbfounded that this was the first file opened for this guy.  He had his routine down.

But I had my routine down too: Miss Nicey Nice.

When the investigator first interviewed me about all the details of this incident, he asked “Did you tell him to not call you ‘baby’?”  I paused, ashamed that I hadn’t, and replied that I was trying to keep the peace and just have him get the job done and get out of there as soon as possible.  It’s what I do: make nice even when someone is being wildly inappropriate with me.

There is no excuse for my allowing him to call me “baby” three times, mention porn another three times, and generally stomp all over my boundaries.   

Clearly I dropped my cape and mask somewhere.  It’s time to find them.  I’m going to get myself to a self-defense class because I want to get more intimately in touch with my “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” which is a tool every Superhero of Love must also have.  Sometimes to truly love ourselves, we have to be kick-ass boundary-building bitches.