Bully for Me

Having been fat and weird-looking for most of my life, I have had more than my share of bullies.

The most memorable are Kathy Moore in the fifth grade and Robert Hixson throughout junior high school.

Kathy sent me little notes all day, which I was too stupid not to open. "You're ugly." "Your clothes are stupid." "You are stupid." "Your mother is a cripple." "You are so dumb you don't even know your slip is showing." "I'm going to beat the crap out of you after school."

Well, one of them got me crying. I happened to have a wonderful fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Stephenson. She was gray-haired, extraordinarily tall, and put up with no nonsense while at the same time being immeasurably kind.

When she saw me trying hard not to cry, she looked at me and at Kathy, snapped her fingers and said, "Kathy and Becs, you will go into the hall this very minute." I can't remember what Mrs. S said to Kathy, but the bullying relented for a while. On this particular day, my affront to Kathy was that my slip was showing about an inch below the hem of my admittedly ugly dress.

Here is what got Mrs. S into Heaven: "Oh, don't you pay any attention to her. She's a mean girl and she'll always be mean. Yes, your slip is showing, but did you look at the hem of your slip? It's lovely - it's all lacy and pretty. It's not a sin and you haven't done anything wrong."

Robert Hixson was even worse. Much, much worse. There was no Mrs. S to grab his scrawny neck and drag him out to the hall, because all of this happened on the bus.

Much like Forrest Gump, I was denied any seat on the bus. I desperately wanted to sit as close up front as I could, near the driver, but mine was the last stop on the route, so I ended up having to sit in the back where the boys were. Robert would come change seats and sit so close to me, I could smell him. He would look me up and down and say, "You're too ugly to be alive. Why didn't your mother drown you? Ugly and fat and you don't have any friends and everybody on this bus hates you." That went on for three years. Three years.

The only thing that changed it was when I got to high school, I was on a different bus route.

I have managed to live bully-free until Annushka married Ralph. Ralph's oldest daughter Judy is a complete bully.

Annushka and Ralph got together while I was pulling myself through the Lost Years, so that's when I met Judy. At the time, I was taking in renters and going from temp assignment to temp assignment.

Every time I see her, she asks me two questions:

"So, where you are working now?"
and
"Who do you have living with you now?"

Last night, E gave a huge party and Judy was there. She asked me the same questions and I answered this with a laugh - "The same place I've worked for the last two years and as I've told you for more than two years, I don't have a roomie. By the way, are you still working at the boring Pharma job? It must suck to have such a bad memory."

Turned on my heel, walked away.

Later, after all had departed, I was in E's living room. "I swear," I said, "If Judy asks me one more time where I'm working, I am going to bitch-slap her."

"Yeah, she can be hard to take. But I have something that should cheer you up."

"Tell."

"Her boyfriend dumped her."

High five!