What Were They Thinking?

“You’re so ugly, your kid should kill themselves.” Klein said her son committed suicide 10 years ago. 

I sat down to eat my lunch today and thought I’d catch up on the news. I really hate reading the news because it gets my blood boiling. Especially today. I’m sure by now most of you have heard about the 68-year-old school bus monitor who was bullied by a bunch of middle-school kids on their bus ride home. If you haven’t, her name is Karen Huff Klein, and you can read all about it here. I was beyond disgusted and beyond angry when I saw this and heard the horrible things they were saying to this woman. I felt ashamed of kids I didn’t know and embarrassed for how she must have felt. The suicide comment above must have hit so close to home for her that it made me cry.

It is incidents like these that make me so worried my own daughter and school. Because this is happening. This bullying is real. The sheer fact that there are so many avenues to bully people now just overwhelms me. Four different kids took videos of what they did to this woman and then decided to share it with the world. As if being bullied wasn’t humiliating enough, now the whole world knows. And maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it will open the door for us, as parents, to talk to our children and reiterate what is appropriate behavior and what is not.

How this woman handled it with such dignity is beyond me. I felt rage and wanted to scream at them for her. I wanted to yank those kids off the bus and march them up to their homes and have a talk with their parents. This is a 68-year-old woman and I’m sure their words hurt very much. At 68 I think she possesses the maturity and understanding to know her life is worth living. That she shouldn’t kill herself. But what about a 10-year-old? This is what scares me.

I don’t know what I would do if Ava were on the receiving end of treatment like this. Lord knows I’ve bought a few books to try and learn how to raise a happy, confident girl. I hope that if that day ever comes where she’s bullied or sees someone being bullied, she stands up and stops it. I hope that she is always 100% certain that her life is worth living. I do know this, if she EVER treated an elderly person (or peer) the way the children in this video treated Ms. Klein, she better be prepared for eight hours a day, five days a week volunteering at the local nursing home over summer break. She better be prepared to change bedpans and get to know the people who have come before her; people who have shaped this world she lives in.

I don’t know the types of homes these children came from. For all I know, they have great parents who are really, really angry at them right now. I can only hope that’s the case. I hope that the parents make these children right what they’ve done wrong. I hope that these children are taught a lesson they will never forget. I hope we are all taught a lesson we will never forget. Treat people with respect.

“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.” – Haile Selassie

I’m Going to Karate Chop Someone

Normally I try to be all Zen-like toward people. Today is not a normal day. I gave up meat. Shut it…I don’t judge you for eating it, don’t judge me for not eating it. I just don’t like it that much. Except bacon. But bacon is not a meat. It’s so awesome it’s like it’s own planet.

So, this week I stop at the store and buy carrots and hummus because let’s be honest, if I’m giving up beef jerky I have to have some sort of snack. On Monday I put it in the fridge at work with my name on it in black permanent marker. I was out of the office on Wednesday. When I came back I had five carrots left. FIVE!!! Clearly I wasn’t even in the office to eat them and I would kind of remember eating a WHOLE BAG OF CARROTS (minus the five leftover for me). So I was kind of pissed, but thought, “Maybe someone just didn’t see my name on the bag. It happens.”

This morning I go to get my last five carrots, a few crackers and some hummus and this time…SOMEBODY ATE MY DAMN HUMMUS!!!! This is no mistake. I am being targeted for my food. I know it…I can feel it in my bones. So, I’ve come up with some ideas for handling this:

1. Leave a note that says, “You’re an asshole. Love, Janice”
2. Leave a note that says, “You owe me $7.82”
3. Leave a note that says, “Hope you enjoyed my carrots and hummus. P.S. I double-dip like a mo-fo”
4. Leave a note that says, “P.P.S. My daughter has the croup and I let her lick all the carrots.”
5. Hide in the fridge and when they open it explode out and yell, “Caught ya sucker!”
6. Put some eye drops in the hummus and see who spends the most time in the restroom next week.

Or I could just do this: