In honor of my tradition of blogging about school related topics when posting school sports pictures I have the following true story:
I was a freshman (read: peon).
It was St. Patrick's Day and I wasn't wearing green.
A sophomore (or junior?) who shall remain nameless (not because I care about his anonymity, but because I can't remember his name) walked by me in the hallway and pinched my arm.
This was not an ordinary playful pinch.
There was an instant bruise and it raised up.
To add insult to injury, I didn't even know this kid.
"Kid" probably isn't the correct term. He was a kid in a man's body who apparently didn't know his own strength.
I was stunned and staggering into class when the bell rang.
And then something came over me.
Looking back on it now, I might call it blind rage.
I am not an angry person and I hate confrontation, but something happened on that particular day.
I was like a mini Hulk (without the actual strength or green body).
This is what a generally quiet, somewhat shy freshman did when confronted with blind rage:
I found out from someone that the behemoth had Mrs. Singleton's math class that hour.
I got a hall pass to go the bathroom.
I marched in a fury down the hall to her class.
I knocked politely on the door and asked if I could have two minutes with Mr. Behemoth.
Mrs. Singleton looked at me warily (as she was also my math teacher she knew whatever I was up to was out of character) and said, "We're in the middle of class."
I just looked at her and said, "Just TWO minutes. Please."
She must have seen the determination (or psycho) in my eyes because she yelled his name and said, "Two minutes."
The man child sauntered to the door with a smirk, but also confusion on his face since he didn't really know me and was most likely trying to figure out why I had summoned him from class and how I had managed to get the teacher to agree to it.
It is important to note at this point that as a freshman I was 5'2" and weighed around 100 pounds.
This guy was on the football team.
I lunged in his direction (which I think scared him), pulled my shirt sleeve up and shoved my bruised, disfigured arm in his face and said something along the lines of, "You big, stupid jerk! Look what you did to my arm! How dare you walk by someone you don't even know and hurt them like this? You overgrown toddler! You will never touch me again...understand? If you touch me again, I promise you will regret it."
He stared at me in disbelief.
He apologized.
And then I made the "you disgust me" face at him and walked away as he slinked back into class.
My heart rate returned to normal and I felt proud that I stood up for myself and got results.
I felt vindicated and strong.
And then I heard that when everyone in his class asked him what I wanted he told them I was asking him out.
Oh well. You can't win them all.
Besides, he never did touch me again after that. In fact, he gave me quite a wide berth in the hallway and if I didn't know any better I would think he was actually avoiding me.
One point for the little guy (gal)!
B
You can see these pictures larger here under "High School Tennis".
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