To speak or not to speak

Several years ago, I was out with a friend of mine, I'll call her "Matty" and her husband. I'd been friends with Matty and her husband for a while. We had gone out for drinks and at some point in the evening, her husband grabbed my butt. Now, normally I'm the type of person to laugh this off, but I was upset about this, given that she was nearby and it was in full view of other people. I was wondering whether or not to tell her when I thought to myself, "there's no way this is going to end well. If I tell her and she gets upset and starts screaming at her husband, it's going to make for an awkward rest of the evening. If I tell her and she doesn't get upset, then I'm going to feel disrespected."

As I may have mentioned earlier, I recently went to the dermatologist where I was treated to some free cosmetic procedures. (don't worry, I'm getting to the point) The dermatologist and the rep from the cosmetic company were examining myskin in much the same way one might examine a cut of meat at the butchers. They went on in great detail about the jowls I will probably develop, the wrinkles I had and the overall sorry state of my face.

A couple of days after that, I had gone to the hairdressers. Now don't get me wrong, I love my hairdresser and I am faithful to her, but the owner of the salon she works for needs to work on her people skills. When I go there, she usually charges me a lot less than regular customers, but this is because she is working towards her license. I'm ok with that, but what bothers me is that she is often called away to wash someone else's hair while in the middle of working with me, adding sometimes hours to my time in the chair. If that's not bad enough, the last time I was there, before I left, the owner examined my hair, called the hairdresser over and began to show her in minute detail all the spots she missed, without bothering to offer to correct them and after spending almost 6 hours in the chair.

What do these three stories have in common? If you haven't figured it out by now, in all three I was tempted to say something. My mother wasn't really the type to tell me to fight for your rights but my dad was a big union man (must've gotten it from his side of the family.) In all three cases, however, I said nothing. Does that make me a coward? Maybe but I'm a coward with a new face, a drinking buddy and decent hair. That's what I learned today.