Right? Hopefully I give off a vibe of "no touchy" and this would never happen to me.

I, too have a "no touchy" vibe that mostly works. I had to say "at this point in my life", because when I worked at the service desk of the grocery store in high school/college, there was a dirty old man who came in every day as I was putting up the lotto numbers and pinched my waist? As an adult, I now realize that was out of bounds. I was an old man magnet as a young woman, for some reason.

At my old job, there was one woman who always threatened to pinch people on St. Patrick's Day, and -- I look terrible in green and never wear it -- I flatly told her that I consider that assault and she shouldn't be surprised when I physically defended myself.

She huffed away with "It's JUST for FUN, jeez!" To which I replied "Nope, assault is never fun. Keep your hands off me at our place of employment."

People often thought I was a bitch, but I never got pinched. Jesus. How the fuck hard is it for grown-ass adults to actually act like adults?

Half my co-workers are relatives and I've been friends with most of the ones who aren't for over a decade, so I'd probably take it in stride. Random people I don't know well pinching me will result in a fistfight, though.

I've literally never been in any setting where the pinching thing happened! Or at least I don't remember it happening. I don't know if it's because 75% of the kids I grew up around had some Irish heritage, or if everyone just wore green anyway, or what. But among adults? That is NUTS.

We had the pinching thing too. Green was a very fraught color in grammar school though, because wearing green on certain days meant you were "horny" or "gay", and so I never owned any green. Then St. Patrick's came, and you were pinched for not wearing green.

I remember it from grade school.

Last year, someone stuck his head in my office door and pointed out, enthusiastically, that I wasn't wearing green. I offered the fact that my ancestry was French. He didn't take that as an excuse, but when I just stared at him and didn't respond any further, he gave up and walked off.

I don't think I ever was in an environment that did the pinching thing. I may compliment someone on their green, but never for the lack thereof! Except my kids, they will comply with the wishes of their Irish mom, or else.

The pinching thing is news to me. No Irish ancestry here (although I come close -- one set of great-great-grandparents immigrated from Anglesey), and I've been criticized both for wearing green and for not wearing green on St. Patrick's Day.

I was one of the few people wearing green here at work. The subject never came up.