I guess it’s just the facts of life.
You take the good, you take the bad, you add them both, and there you have the facts of life. Yeah, the facts of life.
And the facts are that kids are mean. You know it. I know it. It’s no small wonder.
They mock and tease when you’re most vulnerable: during your growing pains…
… calling you everything from a “stupid-head” to an “Alien Life Form.”
God forbid other kids learned a secret about you; like the fact that you had two dads.
They’d never let it go. It was like they just knew that the right insult, at the right time, about the right person, would rocket them to stardom and playground lore, sending them right to the head of the class.
They knocked you down before you ever really had a chance to get your feet underneath you. It seems the only things kids share are germs, never the kinds of nutrients that would allow you to shine, or to bloom, or to blossom.
What am I getting at here?
At least once, I was one of those kids. And I remembered it so randomly yesterday. I was fumbling through the cabinet and saw some raisins. And it hit me: raisin butt. I called her “Raisin Butt.”
Granted, “Raisin Butt” is a pretty mild slight, but it opened the floodgates. There was a girl, when I was about 7 or 8, that had a huge butt. Now while only four or five years later I would suddenly come to appreciate the wonder that is a healthy posterior, at 7 it was weird and worthy of mocking because it was different.
One day, she decided to wear some bright hot pink pants. And, well, she just so happened to sit on a raisin such that there was a dark brown circle directly in the center of her behind. Maybe I was first to notice the location and the proportions, or maybe the scenario is even worse and I was just the first to say something, but my whisper became another and another, and pretty soon “Raisin Butt” was a dream label compared to the other names that day. And I remember her being really upset about it, because no one told her the secret and, for some reason, that raisin stayed there the rest of the day and the jokes kept coming.
When guilt eventually set in for me, I told her after school. She literally brushed it off and walked home.
Twenty years later, I seriously doubt she has any real memory of it. But I did, so maybe, right? Maybe she doesn’t remember the pants or the raisin but she remembers how she felt that day. I don’t know. I certainly remember a handful of days like that from childhood, some now funny, others still sore.
I guess my point is obvious: I was an ass that day and words linger, longer than we expect in ways for which we don’t prepare. And the only difference between me at 7 and me at 26 is that I now know more words; I now have more of an arsenal.
So, be careful. And choose wisely.
Not only is your arsenal larger and more diversified, but you also have a blog, which is like an armory!
I know! It’s a platform. Must, use, caution.
One time I started a rumor that my friend humped cows. People called her “horny cow humper” for the rest of middle school.
I felt bad at first, but then she developed this weird farting problem, and I stopped feeling bad because we could have called her much worse.
I did have to put up with her farting next to me in class for 4 years. Karma.
Karma is a horny cow humper.
I still think back to things I’ve said (or had said to me) and, for the particularly bad ones, I feel myself blushing. Kids can be so cruel.
So cruel. Now that I’m thinking, I’m remembering all sorts of horrible things I did.
well said.
it’s funny how some things just..stick with us.
oh.. and LOL @ Maxie
Stick with us? I see what you did there. And I like it.
I can’t believe you are 26. You seem so much older and wiser and for reasons well beyond your remorse about ‘raisin butt’.
I have the grey hairs to prove it! Well, one. One grey hair.
I think as kids we all say things we don’t mean, with no concept of the damage we do, and in many cases we get our turn to be humiliated as well.
Experiences like these do shape us to an extent, just as much as our experiences at home.
I suppose what I’m ultimately getting at here is…
We’re all just the product of our raisin’.
*runs and hides from the Pun Police*
The Pun Police sirens are still ringing.
*applies to the Witless Protection Program*
Zing! You’re on a roll today.
Small Wonder was one of the worst shows. EVER.
What do you mean that wasn’t the point…
I honestly don’t remember liking it or not. But I do remember Vicki seeming pretty miserable.
Blossom was just on TLC’s What Not To Wear and Stacy and Clinton showed her no mercy. It was full of awesome.
Really? They do celebrities now? Haven’t seen that show in ages.
wow….I totally forgot about Small Wonder. Was her name Vicki or something? I just did an album on facebook of old memories…had ALF in there…but completely had Small Wonder wiped from memory until I saw the fuzzy still shot of the youtube on this blog. Isn’t it weird how your memory can completely come back with a visual cue 20 or so years later? that was pretty awesome…
And yes….I remember Eric from elementary school who was so cruel to me as well as others. He didn’t like girls…especially if they had a few extra pounds or were a different color skin than him and so he had a foul mouth and also did things like pull chairs from under you, sometimes causing you to rip your favorite heart tights! (yes still bitter). And like Maxie putting up with horny cow humper for years in middle school, i sat behind mean boy Eric (because of where our last names were in the alphabet) for 7 long years. Thankfully Eric went to private school once junior high came…but i was not completely freed from this tyrant. Ironically enough Eric later became our paperboy while I was in 7th and 8th grade and then became a serious boyfriend of one of my best friends during college. They didn’t last as a couple but after 5 years of not seeing him I ran into him a few months ago on the train….and he greeted me with a huge hug….. WTF
thanks for reminding me of the “good” (kinda) old days
This entire post was one memory/snapshot leading to another; a trip down a cobbled memory lane.
Kids can be very cruel… I have been subject of cruel jokes, and I am sure I have made them to someone else. What I have noticed is that one tends to forget (or, I do, anyway) of the cruel things/words I’ve done/said to others (but not the once said/done to me). This post made me wonder how many things I don’t remember and would like to take back…
There’s a few memories I really regret. Not too many but a few. And you’re right: it makes me wonder what I’ve forgotten and what others haven’t.
Lord have mercy the first time i taunted a kid my mom overheard me and set up some sick sort of kangaroo court and embarassed me in front of them. never again I thought…too painful. If we had parents doling out more life lessons perhaps children wouldn’t be as cruel.
Thanks for the time warp though – all those shows reminded me of my children. I’m sure to be humming most of them today.
The time warp was the one good vibe about the post. I hadn’t seen that Head of the Class intro in, well, years.
I have a story like this… except I was her. And you’d think after everything I put out there, I’d be able to share this, right?
But for some reason, I just can’t.
These things, they stay with us.
Way longer than is fair. Way longer.
Kids can be SO MEAN, these days they get even meaner. This makes me glad I’m so much older right now and pass the phase
They do seem meaner these days. Or maybe that’s just crotchety, 26 year-old me missing the good old days.
I have nooooooo idea what you’re talking about. This post is so unfamiliar to me.
I’ll admit it: the first thing I thought was that you don’t do remorse.
You make a good point, and there are also memories that for some reason or another, just stick out through our childhood. I remember this one piece of advice I got from a substitute teacher in 6th grade that will always stay with me…
The mind works in mysterious ways. So does, WordPress, actually. Why is it so buggy today?