the passionate ailurophile

My friend Kat went through a very horrifying experience yesterday. She has two teen boys, both of who attend the same high school. There was allegedly a kid with a gun in the school, so the whole school went on lockdown.

Not only did the school not contact police and parents in a timely manner, but they were taking away the cell phones of kids who were trying to call their parents. This shit infuriates me to no end. Don’t the parents have the right to know what is going on at the school, and to hear from their kids, just to know that they are okay?

Her older son Mark left his phone at home, so no one could take it away. But Kat’s younger son, Sebastian, did have his cell with him, and he called her as often as he could get away with, just to let her know what was going on, and that he was okay. Those calls were a huge comfort to her…especially since she wasn’t getting enough info from the school. She was getting more info from the TV news than from the stupid school. Who the fuck do these school authorities think they are, taking the phones away from students like this? All these kids wanted to do was call their parents to let them know what was happening, and that they were okay. What’s so wrong with that?

One of the things that Kat mentioned in her several posts about this whole thing, is that schools do NOTHING about bullying. They never have, and I doubt they ever will. The kid with the alleged gun is a victim of bullying. He happens to be gay, and other kids had been tormenting him at school all the time. So, if he really did come to school with a gun, there’s his motive. Not that it was a good thing to do…violence never solves anything…but perhaps this kid was so disturbed by his tormentors that he felt he had no other choice. Or, perhaps, he never had a gun at all, that he was set up by his tormentors. I’m sure we’ll find out more eventually.

I was bullied and tormented in high school. I was a geeky looking kid who wore glasses and walked funny (still do). My family didn’t have much money, so I didn’t have the latest fashions and all. I was tormented by a group of *popular* girls just for being *different*.

Yeah…getting a gun and shooting those evil bitches dead would have been at least temporarily satisfying, but it wasn’t something I ever seriously thought of doing. The only thing I could do was be patient and wait it out…eventually I graduated, and then I’d never have to see any of those shallow bimbos ever again. I know it’s hard for kids who are being bullied to think about now…but it’s true…YOU WILL NOT BE IN HIGH SCHOOL FOREVER. It’s just a temporary hell, and trust me, life DOES get better once high school is over. The best thing to do is to just bide your time, and when you’re 18, you’ll graduate and can move away if you want to. My point is that it’s not worth it for any kid to fuck up his or her life because of assholes who bully them. I know how hard it is to tolerate this shit on a day-to-day basis, but the important thing is to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Mike got bullied even worse than I did. He went to some crappy redneck high school in Streetsboro, Ohio, where it wasn’t cool to be smart. But Mike hated living in Streetsboro, and he busted his ass studying so that he could get into MIT, and get the fuck out of that shithole town forever.

And he did! Yeah, he had to drop out of MIT for a time due to lack of money…he joined the Navy and got some very valuable experience working with radar and other electronic stuph. But he did eventually go back and complete his degree.

Most of the kids who tormented him back in high school are still living in Streetsboro, still working at the local gas station or the Sparkle Market. They never did much of anything with their lives…they thought that being a popular jock in HS was all one needed to succeed in life.

So many people I knew from HS ended up being disillusioned with life, as well…they were the popular kids who tortured me, but once HS was over, they were suddenly hit with the fact that no one gave a shit about them any more. No one cared about how cool they were in HS, college and jobs and all were a whole different world, and many of then never could adjust. The horror of it all…no one was worshiping them as they did in HS!

My 30 year reunion would be coming up in 2008. I have never been to any of my HS reunions, but there’s a part of me who wants to go to this one. I really want to see what some of these people look like now, what they are doing and all. I bet most of them look like shit, and are miserable. After all, when you make high school the be-all and end-all of life…so many people say it was the best time of their lives…what else is there to look forward to?

I might want to go just so I can lord it over these losers. They told me that I was too ugly to ever snag a husband…well, I have one, and he’s quite the catch. Even though he was bullied in HS for being smart, now he’s an electrical engineer and making decent money. We have a nice life…yeah, we’ve had some bumpy patches, but we work through them. We take our little trips, we go to a lot of minor league ball games in the summer, and we go out to eat and drink good beer. We have our cats, our hobbies, and we have fun. If we had let assholes from high school dictate our futures, we’d be beaten down still, and not have all we have now.

But then again, I don’t know if I’d want to waste money and vacation time to go see the losers from my HS. The only thing that might get me to go down there is if the minor league independent baseball team, the Atlantic City Surf, were in town at the time. That team wasn’t around back when I was living there, I’d love to see them and their ballpark.

In conclusion…yeah, high school sucks big fat hairy smelly donkey balls. But as much as it sucks, bringing a gun to school and shooting people solves nothing. The best thing to do is to just be patient, bide your time, and get out of there ASAP, and move on with your real life.

It’s been said a million times before, but I’ll say it again. Living well is the best revenge.

I’m just glad that Mark and Sebastian are okay. They will be staying home from school today, because the kid who supposedly had the gun has not been found yet. That was a good decision for Kat to make, and no doubt other parents of kids at that school will be doing the same thing.

But how about doing something about the bullying problem? The problem is that even teachers favor the popular kids, I know this from my own experience…so nothing will ever be done. However, if nothing is done, stuff like this will keep happening in our schools.

Sad. Very sad. And very scary, too.