Last night, coming home from rehearsal (I just joined a chorus), a young man who looked like a grown Ralphie sat a bit too close to me on the metro. Figuring it was just another example of inconsiderate French social behavior, I ignored him and continued reading Barrel Fever, smiling to myself as drunken Adolph butts in on his friend's AA dinner. Then Ralphie got in my face (classic close-talker) and asked me if the end of the line was Nation, and I said yes. Then he asked if I would help him to undo some of the buttons on his vest, because he was visually impaired (probably from his mother making him eat soap for saying the F-word.) I found this odd and responded, "Do you need to see to undo buttons? Can't you just feel them?" To which he replied, "Yes, but it would give me pleasure if you did it."

I said, "No, thanks," and moved to another seat, disturbed, certainly, but more amused because I had just been sexually propositioned by Ralphie. Also amused when failed molester ran off the train Dynamite-style at the next station, humiliated by rejection of his bizarre request. I wish I knew how to say, "No, I will NOT make out with you" in French. In retrospect, that's what I should've shouted out, so everyone knew there was a molester in their midst.