bully on the bus

Recently, I saw that someone's blog was discussing bullies and I thought I would post about one particular experience I had with a bully - who shall be named (we'll have none of this "names will be changed to protect the innocent" jargain. I plan on naming him outright because he's GUILTY!)

When I was in the 4th grade, I was all about some tennis shoes. Probably because mom only believed that children needed two pairs of shoes - one for play and one for church. So tennis shoes it was because my church shoes most surely weren't going to get NC red clay on them during recess.

With my tennies, I wore these beauties...

and yes, I did own them in every color, but my favorites were the green and blue ones.

As many of you may recall, back in the day, everybody rode the bus to and from school, it was the thing to do. My sister (who was 2 years ahead of me) and I always sat next to each other.

On this particular day (and maybe many others, but I just remember this day), Scott Reid sat behind us. Scott was a year older than me, which in my eyes made him automatically superior to me, and he was also a bully. He had spikey brown hair and was a troublemaker in general from what I can remember.

So, this afternoon, Sarah and I were minding our sweet sisterly bid'ness, our little feet dangling just above the floor of the bus, as we bounced along the neighborhood streets eagerly anticipating our arrival home.

All of a sudden, I felt a tug at my left heel, followed by another tug at my right heel. Puzzled, I picked my feet up to see what it could have been and I noticed that the pom-poms were missing from my socks!

As I prepared to look behind me to see what Scott has to say for himself, I glance at the aisle and notice the pom-poms rolling toward the front of the bus.

The little snake had plucked the pom-poms off my socks and bowled them down the aisle!

Words escaped me at that moment while horror and embarrassment hit me simultaneously. My cute socks had been de-balled. What was a girl to do?

Actually, I don't recall what I did in the moments following this tragedy, but I do remember that I was terribly distraught over the loss of my "balls" and probably shed a few tears in the privacy of my room. I'm sure my mother had some comforting words and probably told me to ignore Scott Reid for the remainder of our time together in elementary school. So I did. He never apologized for his dirty antics and it took me a long time to get over it.

Scott, if you're reading this, I just want to be the "bigger man" and say that I have forgiven you. I'm sure that you've moved on to greener pastures and maybe even have a carbon copy of yourself in one of your children. Hey, good luck with that...and teach them how to be kind to others so that their names won't be plastered on someone's blog in years to come.