Case in point: the constantly-crying, diabetic, hypothyroid homeschooled girl. She is genuinely pitiable, but is also a shining example of the case against homeschooling. When her cabinmates begin to mention, after a hot-looking day of physical exertion, that she should think about taking a shower, she just. doesn't. GET. it. She seems both totally unconscious of both the need to shower after all that exercise AND unaware of and/or unable to process the feedback from her peers. I found myself thinking at her in pity/exasperation, "Girl! I understand, completely- your cabinmates may be MAJOR bitches! But, SRSLY! If those bitches- all of whom are big gals themselves- are telling you you need to jump in the shower, just jump in the freakin' shower!! Those bitches are telling you that YOU STINK, and they're probably not just making that shit up!! If your mom thinks you're too 'sensitive' to go to real high school, then she probably never mentions when you have stinky pit-itis..."
Now, I will freely admit that I was quite often fodder for full on bully feeding-frenzies back in my HS salad days, and that is why I know that snarky "suggestions" to (in my case) run a comb through your hair and do something about your groucho-brows are most often grounded in some measure of fact. Bullies and bitchy girls are not particularly known for their creativity; if you have personal pong issues, they will latch onto that. For example, the only person who's mentioned my eyebrow issues and cracked-out hair in years is my own mom...who did not exactly consider yours truly to "sensitive" for HS, or for anything else, not to put too fine a point on it. (Ski school? Alone? At age 11? In St. Moritz? And I don't speak German? These were the sort of "challenges" that my mom was certain I could rise to with gusto. So- trust me here- I know all about rough social situations...and I still can't ski, btw.) Suffice it to say, as a former brace-faced, cokebottle-lensed, groucho-browed, hairy-legged, frizzy-haired dyed-in-the-wool DORK...well, let's just say I know what greases those bully crankshafts. Oh, yeah; and I've been fat, too. Probably forgot a few others in there, but cut me some slack- I've been trying to forget most of the above awkwardnesses for the past 10 years or so. Thanks, MTV.
This segways neatly into my next case study: the wannabe bully kid. This is a kid who seems to think that dual popped collars and a nasty, bitchy attitude are slimming accessories. He reminds me of the proverbial kid in the remedial class who gets off on calling his classmates retarded, then talks to himself all day about how he doesn't belong there, but doesn't even sound believable to himself. So Mr. DualPop is one of those prince charming types who refers to all the girls as bitches, hos, sluts and assorted other affectionate epithets, as well as telling everything that stands still long enough how some girl who rebuffed him has an ass out to THERE. I mean, srsly- I think I saw him telling a tree about that poor girl's junk-trunk. He seems to wander around in a sort of daze, like a transitory-amnesia-that-he's-at-fat-camp-too. He is endlessly shoving his not-inconsiderable bulk into everyone else's beeswax, to the extent that I was worrying about him getting it stuck there via inertia. He's like some weird, chimerical combo of my overweight, yenta-ish grandma, the ubiquitous HS fat kid who aspires to be a "real" bully and the equally-ubiquitous, weird, socially-inept guy who smells funny and has terrible acne, but who still makes occasional, painfully-gauche attempts to be one of the guys. He finally gets his own big 'ol booty hauled into the camp director's office when his fellow campers finally get their fill of hearing another fat kid make endless fat jokes about girls who could probably fit their entire bodies into one leg of his fat kid pants. When the camp director- who seems to have roughly modeled his affect after Tom Arnold's portrayal of Quinton McHale- calls Col. CollarPop on his toolish behavior, the kid variously cries, protests, lies, lies about protesting and crying, and whatever other combinations of that might be possible.
By the end of the 2 hour show, one thing is certain: I will never, NEVER send The Child to Camp Pocano Trails, or whatever it's called. Smoking counselors behind the cabins? Check! Creepy unsocialized kids tossed in to sink or swim? Check! The kind of bullies you have to assume parents sent their kids to Fat Camp to get AWAY from combined with rampant, seemingly unmonitored first-time sexual experimentation? Check and check!
There was a bit of a heartwarming moment at the end, when MC Collapopz submits- via a chain of acquaintances, natch- a long, handwritten letter to the young lady he's just spent the summer attempting to skewer, (and yes, double entendre very much intended...) in which he alternately apologizes for telling everyone and their body-mike about how humongous and ugly she is, moralizes about how he's spent all summer defending her from people talking about how humongous and ugly she is, says "she'll always have a place in his heart" and maintains that she should do the mature thing and get over being P.O.'d at him so they can be friends again. Okay, that was not the heartwarming part, I just got a little worked up again. The heartwarming part was watching the girl and her friend tear his cheese-spouting arse to shreds and crumple up his sweat-stained little attempt at face-saving.
I just noticed that it's about 100F in the room I'm in, which might be a factor in ratcheting up my snarkiness. But there is still a big chunk of raw, bullied kid inside of yours truly, which has led to me being an adult- and a mom- with a big, no-guff-taking-from-any-swine chip on my shoulder when it comes to bullying, which has been, with time, mellowed by a healthy dose of late-blooming, constructive conformity. So I hold myself to my own standard: would I snark any of the above to the faces of those confused, bitter, deeply hurting adolescents? Yes, yes I think I most likely would. If any of the bullies in my past had been subjected to a no-holds barred dressing-down by an adult and/or authority figure, it might have put a good, constructive scare into their desperately needy, self esteem-challenged little butts. And, if a well meaning adult had treated the ME of my past to a well-intentioned, desperately needed brow wax, I might have been saved several years of trauma. Not to mention a lifetime of obsessive eyebrow-tweaking.
It got late. I'm actually in need of a bit of a shower myself, at this point, as my inner alpha-teen has helpfully pointed out. And not that I have any food issues, but I haven't eaten anything all day besides a donut hole and a splash of milk in my tea. At some point, maybe I'll blog about some issues from my youth that I don't have, well, issues attached to...you know, whenever I figure out WTF they are.
And yes, the ski school story is 100% true. With a happy ending, no less: I snuck away when the instructor was yelling (in German, of course) at a fellow novice, and found a place that served amazing house-made bratwurst with a beer and grainy mustard sauce, spaetzle and bircher meusli. Even then, I had my priorities straight.
In Summation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaZOXF83zBg&feature=related
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