Grocery store sighting

[Imogene]

Had an incident on the school bus where one of the kids kept flicking my ear from behind... I must've told the bus driver, and kid got moved to the seat in front of me.
And, I just couldn't help it... I flicked his ear in return.
I don't remember exactly what happened, but we ended up in the principal's office the next morning.
I think he told the bus driver on me for giving what he gave me... *shrug*

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I still say my proudest moment was kicking the absolute shit out of this kid in high school who, along with his friends, gave me hell since junior high.

One time he came up behind me as I was walking home from school and started punching me and daring me to hit back. So I did, right in the nose. Then, as I was going for his stomach or his nuts, somebody grabbed me and stuffed me into a car.

Yeah, on that day of all days, my mom picked me up from school.

If I saw this guy again (I haven't since high school), I'd probably punch him again. Just because I can and I'm no longer the meek, mild-mannered chickenshit I once was.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Had something similar happen to me, back before I became the big guy I am today. This particular assmuch had been giving me hell for, quite literally, YEARS because I was the chubby little kid everyone picked on. One day my self-consciousness and worry about being a "good boy" went to hell and I told him to leave me alone.

I've had similar things happen to me throughout middle school and high school.

In middle school there was this little douchenugget I'll call JP. He'd picked up that I was an easy target from a classmate from elementary school, and JP was just an absolute dick.

One day, I'm in the gym locker room, trying to get my locker open (not easy with the type of locks they had on these things, compounded by the fact that SOMEONE had rubbed deodorant onto the lock to make it hard to grip), and JP is there just heckling and insulting me up one side and down the other, and SLAPPING my hand off the lock right before I get it open.

Brain goes click. I grab JP by the head and slam his head into the lockers. He goes DOWN. And sadly, all of JP's friends were in that part of the locker room. They all gang up on me, and I just back into the main part of the locker room, and the coach comes running in to see what was going on. Naturally, JP and his buddies say I "beat him up for no reason," and my friends were all in other parts of the locker room, and so hadn't seen what was going on. Coach makes me stay after class, but lets me go without any trouble, because "I know you're a good kid, and you had to have been provoked. Just don't let it happen again."

After that, JP was careful not to give me any trouble unless he had backup. Ditto his buddy who'd clued him in about me. A completely separate incident had me slamming him against the wall after he finally made my brain go click, and he was very careful not to piss me off after that.

The high school incident, though, was a little more complex.

So it was history class. This guy sitting behind me is something of a clown, goofing around, making stupid noises or jokes. I'd been kinda grumpy that day to begin with, and turn to look at him when he makes one of his stupid noises. He flicks me in the hand with the cap of his pen, which was all chewed up. Stung like hell when he did it, and the chewed-up cap cut my hand, too. So I turn around and just ignore him.

Well, Idiot now gets worried that I'm gonna report him or something.

Idiot Boy: You okay?
*poke*
IB: You okay?
*poke*
IB: You okay?
*poke*
IB: You okay?
*poke*
IB: You okay?
J2K: *turns and glares at him* What do you think? *turns away*
*pause*
*poke*
IB: Answer yes or no, you okay?
*poke*
IB: Answer yes or no, you okay?
*poke*
IB: Answer yes or no, you okay?

Brain goes click. I just turn around, swinging to stop him poking me, and accidentally hit him in the nose, while saying, "Cut it out!" His nose gets bloodied a little bit. Now I'm feeling a little bad about the whole thing, and he shuts up, sulking.

Class breaks for lunch. I go down to the cafeteria, buy my food, and go sit down at a table with some friends. I've barely started when IB storms up to me.

IB: I'm gonna fight you, but I wanna give you a chance, so I'm gonna let you get one free hit on me.
J2K: Look, man, I'm sorry about what happened. I didn't mean to hit you like that, and I don't wanna fight you.
IB: Get up and take your shot.
J2K: No.

He then SLAPS my tray of food all over my chest and lap. I just calmly brush most of it off my shirt and pants, off the table, fold my hands on the table, and sit there, not looking at him. IB gets ticked, but a teacher made him walk away before it could get any further.

I get some food comped over the incident, finish my lunch, and wander about the cafeteria as I'm known to do. I'm coming out of the bathroom after cleaning up and I see these three kids (whom I vaguely recognized as friends of IB) marching towards me. I didn't really connect it with anything until I see the same teacher as before intercept them and make them go away.

I go back to class, but IB isn't there. And I get summoned to the dean's office not long after. IB is there, and he immediately apologizes for what happened, and I restate my own apology for hitting him in the nose. IB had to stay in ISS (In-School Suspension) the rest of the day, and I found out later that he was on the bubble with his parents as it was, like one more phone call away from getting sent to military school or something, so he was REALLY apologetic in the hopes they wouldn't tell Dad.

I didn't have so many problems when I moved to Northern Virginia to finish high school. Probably because the worst of the immature idiots had finally matured, or they'd been weeded out by the politics of high school life. I was also quick to make friends who would back me up, and I wasn't smaller than most of my classmates, either. (Since, in Texas, it seemed that a lot of my guy classmates were 6'4" and beefy as hell.)

[Kogarashi]

And here I just learned to turn invisible.

By the time I hit 9th grade, all the bullies who did pick on me had learned that I wouldn't respond, not even to tell a teacher on them (with one exception*), and just sort of lost interest. One even got to liking me a bit when she read some creative writing I'd done for the school literary magazine (liked my talent, I guess).

Most of the bullies before then would just tease me, which I ignored.

* The exception was one supposed "friend" who got it into her head in 7th grade that she didn't like me, and started calling me names and making crass remarks about me and another friend. It came to a head when she stabbed me in the hand and neck (shallowly) with a ballpoint pen during study hall. It ended up in the principal's office with her apologizing and the principal telling her to lay off the other friend and me, and we didn't interact much after that. That was the only time I told a teacher (because the only people I hit back at that age were my sibs).