Black and White and Red all over!

In my humble opinion one of the hardest things about growing up, is all of the other people growing up along side of you. Almost everyone you know is either going through an awkward phase, insecure about something (or more realistically some things), or entering that tenuous stage in life where it is decided whether they will be good or evil. Hormones are raging, bodies are changing, and nearly everyone your age is not happy in their own skin. It is a mess.

So consequently, if you stuff a gym class full of 11 year-olds all of whom are completely mentally and physically discombobulated by puberty, problems will arise. Pre-teen (tween) children are predatory. They smell the fear and weakness of everyone around them and they capitalize on those weak points in order to deflect from their own. It is like some well choreographed dance...

• Feeling fat in your gym shorts? Call the girl in glasses standing next to you "four eyes".
• Get caught looking at the cute boy on the other team? Slam the scrawny girl in front of you to the floor.
• Accidentally fart too close to the crowd? Blame it on the disabled kid with the helmet.
• Everyone calling you "four eyes"? Hit the pigeon-toed boy in the head with a basketball.

But me, my weakness was being chubby...oh, and my frizzy hair... also, my tweenage acne... as well as, my utter lack of physical coordination, my super thick glasses, and the fact that I am totally devoid of most social skills. However there was one boy, I will call him Digby (that wasn't really his name but I am still a little angry), that liked to make jokes about my parents being interracially married. He would call me "half-breed", "domino", and "twist cone" any chance he got. At one point he started calling me Oreo and then, much to my humiliation, Oreo with Double Stuff. He tortured me continuously through the 7th and 8th grade and the worst part was... I loved him. He looked just like Chachi from Happy Days (and maybe, if you squinted your eyes just right, Matt Dillon). I told myself time after time, "he teases you because he likes you" when in reality he teased me because he was a sadist. But I kept hope alive and never retaliated when he would make fun of me in class or on the playground, I would just laugh... Well, until the incident.

The week started off the same as always, I got on the bus dressed in my plus-sized Wrangler brand corduroys and started to swing into the seat behind the driver. I really liked our bus driver (another reason why kids thought I was Super Cool and stood in line to be my friend!) and when Digby got on the bus I smiled my brightest smile at him at he said, "You're mother's a nigger lover!" So I said, "At least my mom gets out of bed to got to work." Everybody laughed and I settled back in my seat, proud of my comeback but sad at the dissolution of my imaginary relationship with Digby. The rest of the day technically went fine but I began to stew about all the things he had said to me, all of the names he called me the , the jokes...oh, the jokes... (What's black and white and smells like a dog? You and a Dalmatian) I just got madder and madder and by the time I got back on the bus to go home I was enraged. He had gotten there first and met me in the isle...

• Digby: Get to the back of the bus!
• Me: I don't think so!
• Digby: Oh I forgot, your mom's white. You can ride in the middle!
  

And then I punched him in the nose and he bled and bled (What's black and white and red all over? My fist that's what!) I got put off the bus (apparently the bus driver and I weren't as close as I thought). By the time I made it home I wasn't angry anymore but my Mom and Dad were. By the time they got done Digby had to apologize to me, the bus driver had to apologize to me, and nobody called me half-breed any more. They just went back to calling me thunder butt... and all was right in my world.