Who were you mean to in grade school?

All of this makes me smile, in some weird way....

I wasn't the popular girl in school. I was the little band-nerd who didn't hang out with the popular cheerleader/ athlete crowd. I sang in church choir, worked in vbs and nursery, went camping and fishing with my family, and took endless piano lessons. I thought they didn't like me because I wasn't in fancy clothes like them, or didn't do my hair the right way. I used to work long hours studying and trying to make my generic clothes look as cool as theirs did because I thought that would make them like me and invite me to all their parties & events. Found out different about a month ago.

My mom works in HR at one of the retail shops near home. She just recently hired a girl I graduated high school with. At lunch one day, the girl asked about me, how was I doing, etc. Mom got all sassy and said, "My girl turned out great! Got a graduate degree, and works for ___ ___ Company." The girl said, "We always knew she was the smart one." Mom asked her, "Well then why did you ignore her and never talk to her?" The girl answered, "Because your daughter was the good girl, and we didn't think she'd want to come to our parties." Mom laughed, and said, "You're right. My daughter was leading church activities & studying hard."

To me, this is a big deal. I always felt left out. I wasn't cool-enough for them, and used to really be down on myself because of it. Now, I can sit back and laugh. I have the good job, and that pitiful girl, along with most of her friends, is stuck working a part-time retail job making minimum wage. *snicker giggle giggle* Yes I know it's not nice to laugh at her, but it's nice to know all those hours studying and worrying about not being popular paid off.

I wasn't too short, or too tall. I wasn't too fat or too skinny. My friends and I never got in big fistfights with anyone, and we didn't bully anyone. We didn't have big wild parties or secret binge-drinking nights. We went to band competitions and secretly made fun of the other bands. My church friends and I thought "sneaking out" was going out for ice cream after church & not telling our parents. I guess it all worked out...

As far as I can remember, I was never purposely mean or picked on anyone but I did stand by while others were picked on and didn't raise a finger to help!

One thing I regret was losing track of one of my best friends in high school. After graduation, she moved to another state and got married. I think we touched base maybe once every ten years. Well, to make a long story short, I received a Christmas card from her in 2000 in which she wrote, "let's always keep in touch" so the following July, I sent a birthday card, only to have her sister to contact me a couple weeks later to say that she had passed away a few weeks earlier.

So, I guess the moral to the story is to stay in contact with the people that mean the most to you because you may be sorry one day.

Susan

I too was the quiet, unpopular nobody, but I managed to meet, beguile and marry the heart throb from the Catholic school across town. I KNOW there are people out there wondering how the heck I managed to pull that one off! LOL!

Ahhh, life is good. :-)

This message was edited Mar 14, 2007 3:38 PM

I reread the whole thread and I feel bad for some of you who were picked on. I fugure that some of those who bully, do so, so no one can pick on them first. They have low self esteem.

One of the girls who was mercilessly tormented all thru my high school years just died of cancer. I felt really bad for her. She was only 50. Had a husband and two sons. Her obituary said she had a heart of gold. Very sad. She was my age.

in retrospect, i think i was mean to everyone but not in a mean way, if that makes any sense. i was very self-centered and kind of a smart-aleck; i was also painfully shy. i hid my shyness by being flip. so now, the truth is out.

I still love you.

thanks, nap! back at ya! lol

Aawww, me too. Group hug! ((((((((( ))))))))))))

giggling and blushing.........

I guess I was semi-popular in high school. Went to a technical high school in Jax, FL. Took 3 hrs. of office procedures and 3 hrs. of school studies. Was chaplin and secretary of several clubs and ran the little school store and was the principals "pet". I tried to treat all people equal. There was one guy who was very different from the other guys. He was soft and girly and spoke in a wispy voice and liked to hang around with girls. His mother always took him to school and picked him up after school. His name was Eugene. Since his mother and my mother were friends, I saw him at places other than school (church). All the guys picked on him and called him names. I know now that he was a homosexual and he got in a lot of trouble after graduation. Forced himself on a little boy. Sometime in the early 80's my mother wrote and told me Eugene had committed suicide. Then there was a girl named Carolyn who had a hugh red birthmark covering the left side of her face. She wore her hair long to try and cover it up. No one would have anything to do with her and called her names. I tried to talk with her and be friends with her but she just would not accept my friendship. Think now she may have thought I was trying to get in good with her to let her down like other people had done. She was very, very intelligent. I often wonder what happened to her. Guess I will never know. A woman I went to school with for 12 yrs. came to visit us back in the 90's and when she left she took my school annuals with her. Didn't discover it for 3 yrs. We had been looking at them and talking about people. When I went to show them to my DIL they were gone. Searched the house and attic and came to the conclusion that she took them. Since my first name is the same as hers and her mama never bought her school annuals, guess she felt like she could take mine and the people who had signed them were signing things for her. Hurts to think someone would do that, but since she was the only visitor we had during the late 90's that looked at the books and knew where they were kept, then it is only logical that she is the one who took them. Still talk to her sometimes and get e-mails from her, and one day I am going to ask her where the heck my books are and why she took them. Expect her to deny it.

Has anyone else had anything like that happen to them? LIZ

Oh Liz, I'd be very upset to find my yearbooks gone. You are a nice person to try and treat everyone equal. It's too bad the smart girl didn't know that about you. Too bad Eugene's life had a sad ending.

I went to Catholic school and I can't believe the amount of "picking on" and abuse verging on assault that went on. A few bully girls would gang up on an unsuspecting girl and pull her skirt over her head in front of the boys to embarrass her. The teachers never did anything to stop the bullying. I was not in the really popular crowd because I was tall. Once a girl from an older grade picked on me while I was playing ball. I ignored her for at least ten minutes but she just wouldn't quit. I knew if I gave her a black eye I would get in trouble, so I just turned and punched her in the stomach as hard as I could. Knocked the wind out of her and her friends led her away bawling. I didn't get in trouble and didn't feel too bad about it, she provoked it. She never teased me again. Sure, going to a teacher would have been a better solution but I knew they wouldn't take care of the problem. I really don't feel sorry about it to this day, but I hope she turned out to be a nicer person than she was in grade school.

I have read everything above and deliberated on it for several days now and can't come up with a darned thing.

My parents did not spare the rod, nor did the teachers and principals in the schools. You acted up, you got spanked.

I was neither popular, nor unpopular, not fat nor skinny, came from a large family with plenty of siblings. I picked on no one, and no one picked on me. We went to a small elementary school and most students were afraid to misbehave and those that were not afraid, got the paddle. The teachers were not afraid either.

I see a lot of things on TV about how students are mean to one another, and now hearing many of yall's stories, I see that it's too true. I am not necessarily a well adjusted human being, but I don't have bad memories of school years, nor do I have any guilt about them.
Molly

QUOTE: Has anyone else had anything like that happen to them? LIZ

Hi Liz, yes, sort of. A girl I was friends with since the sixth grade invited
me to her home when we were adults. During a party she was having, someone
passed around the yearbooks from high school. When a girl began reading a
poem out loud, it caught my attention, because I was the one who wrote it.
When I looked at the page, I noticed my 'friend' had signed her name as the
poet.

As I strolled through the pages, I noticed she had taken credit for many of my
poems. Because she heard the girl reading the poems, she quickly came
over, took the books and the poems away from us and scurried away, saying
something about not looking at this stuff right now.

I always knew her to be a pathological liar, but claiming my poems as her
own really burned my cookies.

KM

Ohhhh, Wuvie, I'd be ticked!

I used to be the one to get picked on. I was tiny in junior high and high school and I was a gymnast. The first 3 days of 6th grade, a group of girls pushed me into one of those 'half-lockers' in the gym room that is used to hang your coats and stood in front of it during roll call so I was counted absent. Imagine, years later, when I made cheerleader, that same group of girls wanted to be my best friend. In high school there was a group of 'tough girls' that would walk down the hall and call me horrible names and make threats. I had never met a single one of them.

Years earlier, in elementary, I had to wear a very strange brace on my right leg for 4 years. You can't imagine how mean kids were to me. But, I could outswim everyone, out roller skate and out bicycle ride. I could ride my bike with that brace on with no hands. I also jump roped better than anyone else on one leg! That showed them for sure.

great thread !!!
my heart aches for you guys . I m sure i was mean at times to kids who where nerdy. But i just called names, i never cruelty and purposfully hurt anyone or beat someone up.
I will say one thing though I HATE DOGE BALLLLLLLLLLLLL oh gosh do i hate that stupid game. Makes me shiver just hinking about it..
How many of us where the target of DOGE BALL , iknow i was !!
kid with glasses, tall , skinny, shy. yep me alright. always a target.
DOge ball is just an excuse for the popular kids to legally hit, peirce, slam, pulverize, and squish us nerdy kids iwth glasses. Did you ever notice that the gym teacher was getting off on it too??!!! i remember our gym teacher would laugh, when we got slam dunked and glasses flying everwhere and breaking.I vowed when my kids are in school NO DODGEBALL , i will keep them home . People laugh, but i was traumatized. Did anyone see the movie Chicken Little ahhahha great movie.
I hope my kids arent' the mean kids. I try hard and teach them to not be mean.
LONG LIVE NERDS, MISFITS AND THE WEIRDOS
SUE

LOL, Sue! Dodge Ball was one of the few times I could get back at those who picked on me. I was wickedly good at it, for some reason. (Perhaps a gift cause I totally sucked at every other game, lol.) But, we only played it on the last day of school. I remember once, I got Dave B., the most popular jerk in school, right in the face! Oh, that felt SO GOOD! And another time, I was the only one left on my side, and there were 4 or 5 of the popular kids gunning for me on the other. They got me, of course, cause they all threw the ball at once, but I did get a few of them out before that. I can understand your hatred of it, though. Many people feel that way. And it did hurt when you'd get hit in the face and have the marks left on your skin for awhile. Glasses flying off, too. I probably only liked it cause we only played it once a year, heh.

~Kristy

Dear Head Libraian, I'm sorry about all that stuuf although it was fun watching you try to open all the books I glued together. Dear Father Clark and all the Nuns, Sorry about all those strange magazine subscriptions I singed you up for. Dear Mom I ididn't think the earth worms in the sugar bowl were all that bad, I didn't know you were having people over for coffee. Dear Mrs. Pritchette, I hope you fianally got all those Cockle Burrs I planted in your garden. Mr Pruitt, I guess you figured out it was me put that potato in your exhaust pipe...could you believe your wife bent over in the yard just in time to get the potato where it hit her? Man she sure can jump! Aunt Lulu, I was just kidding about that snake being a Rattler, can I come back to the family reunions? To the entire city of Flora, I'm sorry about calling the National Guard and telling them the whole town sunk into a sink hole. To the National Guard, sorry about that call but the whole town kinda seemed like the pits. To anybody I have missed, sorry ...but don't give up cause I've still got plenty of ideas.

Yarapa
that is too funny
Iris if i was a smarter kid, i never thought of payback time. But i sucked at all sports !!!!! I threw worse than a girl lololol.
Iris hooray for you getting back at those kids. I never went to see the movie. I was afraid i would have post traumatic syndrome flash backs in the theartre ahahhaha. COUld you just see it, large popcorn bucket on my head , hiding under a seat . hahaha
sue

Yarapa, did you get mad, or just get even? :o)

Taynors, I still throw worse than a girl. I laugh at myself to see where my throws go, especially when it's straight up. Don't ask me how it happens :))

Sally

heheheh Sallly
yer to funny'
sue

billyporter; Mostly I just had fun but some of the townfolks appeared hostile at times. I don't go back there too much anymore.

Yarapa: I've got ideas too, but these days the least little thing can get you in jail or sued. What a bunch of party poopers people can be these days. So SENSITIVE. They need to get over themselves LIZ

I was such a tomboy that in 5th grade a boy was being mean to the girls and he was being rough with them so these girls all said Dawn`s not afraid of you and they all shoved me into this boy named Pat Potter and he just started swinging at me and i swung back, he hit me on the first swing and my eye wouldn`t stop watering. they thought i was crying. In the office he and I both acted like, What happened? I never had another fight but I did shove a mean girl who was bullying me with her friends every day in 7th grade. I just lost it and they left me alone after that. I owe nobody apologies for being mean intentionally.

I suppose it could be said I bullied a bully and bashed a brother.....while walking home from school a local bully punched my younger brother in the head. One time is all it took for him to fall to the ground crying like a girl. I verbally tore into the bully with such vengeance that he left quickly - looking frightened. Once the bully was gone, I tore into my brother for being such a sissy and yelled at him to get up off the ground and quit acting like a little girl.

rotfl fleurs great story ! love it. most bullies are just little scardycats. Your poor bro. :(
sue

I love the bully scene in A Christmas Story, poetic justice and his mom`s reaction. I can see why kids snap, not to kill people but snap, it does harm someone.
I still wonder how this girl named Janelle Eftering, survived her life as a kid, she was very poor and wore frumpy hand me down dresses and seemed a little slow, she talked like she was and kids were unmerciful to her. I lived in Ohio then and have not since I was 10.
Bad Woovie! We will now shun you! lol

Poor bro because the bully hit him or poor bro because his sister chewed his ***? LOL! I think I was madder at him than the bully because he was so spineless and didn't stand up for himself.

lol Is he still that way now or can he take you?

I didn't want to say it.....but he hasn't changed much. It's very hard for me not to lay into him today! I get very frustrated with him. Ok, enough brother bashing....

Now THIS is a great thread ! Based on what I've read in the posts, it seems to be 50/50 as far as guilt vs. retribution !!! I went to Our Lady of Eternal Guilt School, so need you ask where I stand?

Never did anything horrifically cruel to anyone (that I remember, anyway...) but did have my share of angst, being tall and skinny and lousy at sports, and taunted by the jocks...until I learned how to defuse it and laugh at myself BEFORE they could.

There is a comedienne named Lois Bromfield who did a hilarious video called, "Sorority Girls from Hell"....it's a riot. Nothing dirty in it...just funny as heck.
The "picked on one" get's her revenge in it. If you type in her name, you can find this video on line....you gotta see it....it's nowhere near as intense as "Carrie" (which was a movie, obviously...this is just a three minute comedy video...)

In grade school, I did do a mean thing to a little brat who took piano with the rest of us. She came from a family with money and thought she was better than the rest of us. We were all in one of those dreaded piano recitals once....so, knowing this creepy brat would want to upstage all of us, my pals and I stapled her sheet music together... unbeknownst to her...she got a third of the way through her piece, went to turn the page and was completely fouled up by our prank. She started crying and mommy had to come and save her...but we loved it. Of course we got punished but it was worth it. She was nice after that.

That is a great story, i support this kind of cruelty, it is my unGodly side. I probably wouldn`t do it but would laugh and cheer others on and wait for punishments to go around and say I didn`t do it. lol

This message was edited Apr 2, 2007 9:21 PM

Time to unwatch this thread.