On Christmas Eve, I had just finished helping out at my mom’s restaurant and was waiting for my dad to pick me up. As I stood there, a middle-aged Latino man slowed down his Camaro in front of me, and honked his horn. He accompanied it with a wink, some eyebrow raises, and a laugh that one gets from jollies. This has been the third time this past month that this demographic has, what the cool kids would say, “hollered.”
The other two times were during jury duty in downtown L.A. when he stopped in the hallway, and the second was at a Vons at the checkout when he started walking backwards.
I don’t understand, for I think to myself that I just appear to be a nerdy-looking, semi-aloof young Asian woman. I was wondering if they were doing it to all the women around me, but I was wrong. I was targeted and left unsure as to how to respond except half smile nervously.
If you are an older Latino man reading this and can’t possibly see why this is happening, I apologize. Three occurrences of the same thing usually leads to a suspected pattern in my life that I need to begin to analyze and understand.
Maybe I’m an easy target–not sassy, feisty, or one to respond particularly negatively. Maybe they’re actually not making passes at me all but actually at some foxy lady behind me that I keep missing.
Either way, it’s another mystery in my life I cannot explain. Just like meat loaf and Taylor Swift.
This is Amy Hu signing off for December 27th, 2010.
JUSTFIVELETTERS 
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