the foot fondler

It would seem my foot and ankle were taken advantage of by a serial foot fondler in Walmart back in May. I was in the diaper section, and a man walked up to me all nervous and apologetic. He said he was trying to buy some shoes for his wife (girlfriend? can't remember) and he wasn't sure what size she wore. He asked what size my flip flops were, told me that her foot was just slightly smaller than his, and would I mind him comparing the size of his foot to mine. I thought it was quite odd, but being the ever helpful person that I am, took off one of my flip flops so he could put it up to his foot to compare. (Yes, I realize now this doesn't make any sense....) Then, instead of just putting his foot next to my flip flop to compare the size, he quickly sat down on the ground, took his sandal off and grabbed me by my calf/ankle and put my foot onto the bottom of his. Ewwwww! His hands and feet were sweaty and clammy and he was kind of shaking. I pulled my foot away, disgusted, and turned the cart away to leave. He called out thanking me for my help. I went straight over to health and beauty and got a bottle of hand sanitizer and rubbed it on my foot. It was so nasty....but apparently I got lucky since he didn't rub/kiss/lick me like he did to some of the others. Bleh. It all happened so quickly, and at the time I didn't feel like I'd been particularly violated...I just thought him (and the whole situation) really odd, and was disgusted at having his sweaty foot touch mine. As I drove home I briefly wondered if it was some foot fetish he had, but then forgot about.

So it wasn't until recently that this was on the news, about a man who was asking women to try on shoes and then kissing and fondling their feet/legs. I though, huh...wonder if that could be the same guy. They showed surveillance footage of him leaving a Target store, and he had on a baseball cap, and thus looked quite a bit younger than the man I "met". Well, they caught him and his mugshot was in the paper today and there he was, looking quite a bit like the man I'd encountered. The features I remembered were that he was balding up front, but had kind of long hair in the back. And that he was about my height, slender build. When I saw that picture, I went looking to see if I could find an article stating how tall he was....sure enough, 6 feet tall.

So then I started debating whether to call the police (the newspapers said for any other victims to call the detectives). I didn't feel particularly violated, just grossed out. Plus, I couldn't remember when it was I'd "met" him. I starting thinking about it, and realized all I needed to do was find the receipt from WM that had hand sanitizer on it (I hadn't bought any a year or more prior and none since that day). We keep all our receipts for quite awhile...so after a few minutes of digging, there it was! May 29th, sometime before 12:30pm when I checked out. If they want, they can pull the video from the diaper aisle and see if it's him. The detective said my account would be going into her report, and she'll be giving it to the DA's office on Monday. That's my excitement for the day.

Alex was really tough today. Very unhappy most of the day, though no injuries to report. He mostly hit the sides of his helmet, so his scabs stayed in tact and didn't reopen and bleed everywhere. We went on two car rides and my mom took him on a stroller ride, and he was STILL wanting another ride. We just can't keep wasting the gas driving him around, so I told him no more. He was pretty pissed at that, and tantrumed for about 2 hours before finally calming back down. During his tantrum, he was just yelling and stomping and hitting the side of his helmet....it was a full on tantrum (almost comical...almost). It was quite tolerable as he wasn't actually doing any damage to himself or others, and luckily didn't escalate into that. I know he's getting really bored, and he'll be so happy when school starts again. Unfortunately, we have to get through the VEEG ordeal first.

Here's Alex in his new stroller, urgently requesting a ride (he signs "more" when he really means "I want...". Or in this case, "I want to go for a ride - now, dammit!").