Up My Own Ass

I have been thinking an awful lot about bullies and the general process of bullying, lately.  They’re everywhere, really.  They are the ones cutting you off in traffic and then giving you the finger.  They are the ones that cut in front of you in line at the grocery store and act like they didn’t see you.  Sometimes even friends can assume the role of “bully” by passively-aggressively sending anonymous email to your abusive ex-husband, giving him the details of your upcoming wedding and putting you in a dangerous situation based on their own misguided sense of morality and principle.  I think my sudden fixation might have something to do with this video I stumbled across recently:

I immediately identified with the girl who gets punched in the face walking home from school, while a dozen other kids stand idly by and do nothing.  Not for nothing, but I WAS that girl when I was in 6^th grade.

I had four bullies.  Tammy, who had stringy brown hair and a foul mouth, had a penchant for calling me “bitch” every time she saw me.  Michelle, who was ugly as a badger’s ass with her disproportionately buggy eyes and a cavernous gap between her front teeth, always wanted me dead.  Erin, who was the pretty girl and always seemed like she might be nice on some level, but who loved to laugh at me with my permed hair and gaunt, 68-pound frame.  And finally, JoAnne.  JoAnne is of some non-descript Asian heritage that gave her the most freakishly deep-set eyes and terrifying stare.  She had a lot of rage.  As an accessory to their shenanigans was some kid named Dan who would periodically walk up to me and smack me across my face.

I don’t recall what I did to them to make myself the target of their hatred, but I spent my entire 6^th grade year avoiding their beat-downs, and avoiding school altogether.  I will never allow myself to forget the paralyzing fear and intractable nausea and stomach pain that accompanied the very idea of being in the same building as these girls.  The school principal and his fat pig of a counselor were useless to me, and even bringing them the death threats left in my locker could not convince them of the severity of the situation.  In my mind, I WAS going to die.  And grown folks wonder why kids take guns to school…go figure.  I regard it all now as a character-building exercise.

That is when I began daydreaming about inflicting agonizing pain on people who have wronged me.  I used to imagine grabbing Tammy by her stringy, greasy hair, and burying her face in a cactus.  I would imagine her face being filled with a thousand cactus spines, and the salt from her tears burning the deep punctures in her flesh.  Sometimes I would even imagine blinding her.  You know, silly kid stuff.  *fixed gaze*

Of course, as an adult I would rather enjoy the opportunity for a little chit-chat with these gals.  I would ask them two things:  “Why?” and “Why ME?”  I imagine it has something to do with their self-esteem issues that accompany being ugly, stupid, fat, nasty, skanky, and worthless.  Since I have never been ANY of those things, and since I am heroically well-adjusted in spite of my adversity, I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for them to get through their pathetic, insignificant, meaningless lives having to deal with those kinds of demons.  See, I am TOTALLY forgiving them.  Look, I’ll even pray for them.

Okay, all better now.