Dealing With Your Bully, If Your Bully Is Whitney Chandler

I have been thinking about how I don't blog as often as I would like to, I guess because I'm really lazy or I don't have interesting things to say, but then I started thinking about people who are power bloggers, or super bloggers, or mega bloggers. I pictured an early 30's man sitting on the toilet, his underwear (no pants) around his ankles, a pit-stained t-shirt hugging his chubby chest, with his lap top sitting right there, comfortably on his hairy thighs. He's writing about how over the weekend, he came to the realization that the girls he meets at "the bars" are not the girls he pictures himself marrying. As I was imagining this unrealistic scenario, I came to the realization that it is very realistic. There are people who sit on the toilet, probably for a couple of hours, and type away about their lives. Unfortunately, I am not one of these people. 

This blog has absolutely nothing to do with blogging on the throne or single men who have trouble going to the bathroom. I would now like to talk a little bit about bullies, being bullied, and the act (or art) bullying.

I recently read an amazing book called Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. The young narrator broke my heart over and over, (I actually cried several times while reading this book), when he talked about being picked on by the more popular and tough kids at his school. This got me thinking about bullies. Real live bullies. In books, on tv, and in movies, the bully either physically or mentally attacks the victim in such a way that I would imagine is not something most people can recover from. The timid child is always so so humiliated and brutalized. The bully is always big and angry and manages to intimidate everyone around him. On tv, we see him tie kids to poles in the school courtyard and pull down their pants and pour milk on their heads. In books, we read about him peeing on other children on the school bus, or pushing a boy down the stairs in the hallway of their elementary school. Do these things really happen? Yeah, I guess they do. But that stuff is pretty old fashioned. Now kids are killing themselves after being tormented over the internet. Ugh, how awful it is to be a teenager, and I'm being completely serious.

Ok, this blog is not going in the direction I intended. So, let's just stop.... and regroup. 

 

I, Whitney Chandler, have not really had to deal with being bullied. In fourth grade, I was picked on a little bit by a couple of popular girls for wearing perfectly matching outfits my mom bought at J.C. Penney, or "PENNIES!" as my mom would call it. And since I was the darkest kid any of those crazy mormons had ever seen, I got called "chocolate" and was told I would melt in the sun. I was also told that I would never get a sunburn because I was "so black". And even though I tattled on all of those kids, none of it really hurt my feelings. 

No, I was not bullied. But here's where you'll be surprised... I was kind of a bully. Yeah, I know. I'm not talking about how much I beat up my siblings or embarrassed them in front of their friends and their schoolmates. I'm talking about screaming "GiffTURD!" out the window of the school bus at Gifford Newberry. I laughed at and made fun of kids in class and more often than not, other students would join in. And it wasn't just little quiet nerds (or teachers) who got my guff, it was my close friends. 

Throughout seventh grade and all the way to high school, Ashley and I were so awful to one of our best friends, Kyndra. Ashley was always very jealous of her, but I just thought she was a slut. We used to call her names right in front of her (as if it's better if we do this behind her back...) and tell her that we thought she was the dumbest person we knew. Then in h.s., we would tell her that we would meet her at her house so we could all walk to the bus stop together, but we never would. And if she saw us walking by herself, we would run away from her and act like we didn't see her. Girls are so bitchy. 

But Ashley didn't have immunity. Actually, Ashley got more shit from me (and Cortnie) than anyone else. I made fun of her for being sloppy and dirty, and I wouldn't let her NEAR my bed when she came over to my house. Cortnie and I told her that she had "boob cheese" because she had and still has these enormous Double D jugs stuffed in her shirt. This caught on fairly quickly and other students chuckled as they called her by her new nick-name. She hated it and she hated us. In twelfth grade, we had to fill out a survey for the yearbook. One of the questions read, "What is the biggest lie you have ever told?" Cortnie got someone to write, "Telling Ashley Cook that she is smart." And since I was the editor, I picked that girl to quote, and I published that in our Senior Yearbook for the whole school to read.

On the one hand, I would pick on my insecure friends, or random uber nerds, but on the other hand, I went on a date with a physically and mentally disabled boy, I invited the most awkward boy to hang out with me and my friends at lunch time, and I helped out in the special ed class. How could I be so sensitive, but be so awful at the same time? In my adulthood, I find myself very bothered by that kind of harassment. When I see that kind of behavior on the playground, I just get the most horrible feeling in my stomach. I immediately think of what it was like to be that age and how even the simplest happening could be the most painful experience.

You know?

Well, I'll end on that note. This is far too long, and not worth it. You must really love me if you have read this much. I appreciate you. 

bye