Get thee to a nunnery!

Does everyone remember the goddess of industrial strength silicone? Well she's back, and this week she's weatherproofing the windows and doors of the house to make it more energy efficient (and hence hopefully save a wack of cash).
When I went into the hardware store yesterday, it took me a while to locate the stuff I was looking for. I had a plan where I would seal up the windows with that clear, flexible caulking stuff, and find some weatherproofing strip to line the doors with (because the damn things were installed with like a quarter inch of draft space around the jam -- well done!).
While I was looking at the stuff I decided I might as well talk to someone about it, to maybe get some extra tips, and the first person I could locate was this elderly man in a plaid shirt who sort of reminded me of my Grandpa -- although as it turns out I think my Grandpa is much more sympathetic to women's lib.
He went off on this whole weatherproofing tangent involving a separate storm-window kit for each window at $5 a pop, and was explaining step by step how to do it when he said, "Then you take your hairdryer and just..."
"I don't have a hairdryer," I interrupted. The man stopped dead.
And then he gave me a look that said all at once: "What the hell kind of woman are you missy? Get your ass in that kitchen and take care of your man, you wet-haired, lesbo hippie!"
Before he could voice any of his incredulity I said lamely: "I have curly hair. You don't blow dry curly hair." And settled myself nice and firmly back into my pigeon-hole. Boy did I ever want to smack myself.
The man finally continued. "Well then you can borrow one of your roommates' dryers."
I opened my mouth to inform him that all my roommates are in fact male, but stopped myself. I didn't want to be run out of his store after all.
In the end I did buy my caulking and my caulking gun (and two of his storm window kits, just to appease him) and left the store safely. I tried to thank the man for his help as I left, but he wouldn't make eye contact with me for some reason...

Ain't folks just grand?

It all reminded me most dreadfully of the time this American guy we met in Fiji, after asking DE his entire life plan, turned to me and asked, "So where do YOU fit in to all this?" I almost choked on a cracker.