[Chinney]

Very interesting thread.

I have nothing to offer that rivals many of the above stories, but I’ll tell mine anyway. The cruellest thing that was done to me was not a single incident, but a pattern of behaviour. We moved often (my father was in the armed forces), and I was often the ‘new kid in school’. I am sure that being the ‘new kid’ can be great, if you are a big, outgoing, athletic kid – but I was none of those things: until well into my teens, I was thin, short, and fairly introverted and bookish. I was picked on incessantly during a few of my years at school. There was no single big incident – and no blood was shed (aside from the odd bloody nose) – but there was a constant pattern of minor physical and verbal harassment that made my life miserable. Generally it would stop after the first year or so at the new school, but then we would move again and it would start all over….I know that sounds pretty minor, but it was a big thing to a kid growing up and I really did not get fully over it until early adulthood.

The cruellest thing that I ever did? I generally did not get as much opportunity to be cruel to others – I was just trying to save my own bacon. I don’t know what I would have done had I had the opportunity. I might have been a shit. Looking back at it now, the thing that I am most ashamed of having done is not having stuck up for other people who found themselves the subject of the same harassment. After the kids who were picking on me turned their sights on someone else, I tended to just keep my head down and say nothing. Not good. I still think about this, all these years later. By the same token, one of the proudest moments in my life came when I realized recently that my ten year old daughter had made a different choice – she had defied the bullies at her school – not on her own account, but on account of another little girl who was being picked on, but at considerable risk to her own popularity and status at school. And she succeeded in defying them and helping the other girl be accepted.

[InactionMan]

Alright, since a few people have admitted to some kinda rotten behavior I'll admit to one that is kind of bad.

I used to draw a lot as kid, had the usual aspirations of being either a cartoonist or a dinosaur. Obviously I couldn't be the latter so I stuck to the former. By the time high school started I could draw well enough that I could get a few laughs if I drew a caricature of our gay music teacher on the blackboard before class. So I decided to apply my skills to a more epic task.

There was this pudgy kid that was a bit of dork. He had poor hygiene, no friends, yada yada. Normally I wouldn't pick on a kid like that except that he was really lippy. He was one of those know-it-alls that was always wrong and he'd just keep harping about something even after the teacher made it clear that he was miles from correct. Anyway, there were rumors around school that his father was in prison and his mother had more than a few mental issues. Great fodder for kids in the grade 9. So I decided to make a comic book about his life. I covered everything from how his father ended up in prison to his mom losing her mind and ended it with a family reunion that centered around his entire family having a contest to see who could fit the biggest cucumber up their butts.


I thought it was hilarious at the time. So did everyone I showed it to.

To top it off, I decided to tape the comic book to his locker. When he found it his face went white and he started whimpering. The whimpering quickly devolved into heaving sobs. By the end he was on the floor leaning against his locker crying so hard that it had been reduced to a pained gasp every few seconds.

I skipped the rest of the day and it hid in the park praying that he wouldn't tell the principal. He didn't. I probably should've been suspended. Yeah, I'm probably going to hell for that one.

[Naderfan]

Wow, I had almost managed to forget the whole "Snowman" incident. But now the memory comes flooding back, like the shovel-fulls of snow that went down my back. I think that was the coldest I've ever been.

I remember going sledding when I was little at the cornfields near my house. Off the side of the hill was a fence with a big metal pole at the corner. My dear older cousin would go with us and he'd start sledding. Then, just as he got the fence, he'd flip his sled and made it look as though he'd hit the pole. Then he would lie completely still in the snow, not moving. The first few times, I really thought he was hurt (I was pretty young, like 6) and so I'd go running down there to "help" and i'd get there and shake him to wake him up. At which point, he would open his eyes, yell "Gotcha!" and throw snow at me. How cruel. The worst thing was that he is very patient when it comes to his practical jokes and would lie there motionless until you finally went to check on him. And unfortunately, I was too nice to just leave him there, just in case he really was hurt.

Which reminds me of another cruel moment in my life. Ok, maybe not cruel as much as tramautizing. I was about the same age and my cousin (not the one in the above story-it was his sister) and her friend, who were quite a bit older than me, were letting me go for a walk with them in the same fields. There used to be a grove of pine trees there and we were walking through them when we found this really deep hole. It was at least six feet deep and it looked a LOT deeper to a six-year-old. So my cousin and her friend thought it'd be really cool if I went down there. Luckily, they were much nicer than my other cousin and did not throw me in the hole. Instead, they tried to bribe me, telling me how cool I'd be if I went down there, promising to buy me a candy bar if I did it, etc. But I refused to go down there. Luckily, they then got the idea that we could make a trap out of it (put leaves and branches over the top) and then we could come back and see if we had caught anything. But I still felt bad that I was such a fraidy-cat and not as cool as the big girls.

[Moogs]

I bow to Inaction Man's ruthless and non-violent use of cruelty... that's the winner so far in my book. I can imagine having a shattered ego for a while if someone made a comic like that about me and showed it around school. YOWzaz...

:wow:

PS - now that you've repented and admitted you cardinal sin to the rest of us, I'm pretty sure you'll be spared eternal torment.

[709]

Originally Posted by InactionMan ...and ended it with a family reunion that centered around his entire family having a contest to see who could fit the biggest cucumber up their butts.

JesusGod. I think I broke a rib. Call an ambulance.

[Moogs]

Yah I got a kick out of that too... just picturing myself in HS reading something like that... fairly sure I would be laughing so hard that I would fall out of my chair, only to get sent to the Dean's office.

[InactionMan]

Originally Posted by Moogs I bow to Inaction Man's ruthless and non-violent use of cruelty... that's the winner so far in my book. I can imagine having a shattered ego for a while if someone made a comic like that about me and showed it around school. YOWzaz... :wow: PS - now that you've repented and admitted you cardinal sin to the rest of us, I'm pretty sure you'll be spared eternal torment.

At least I may not go to hell for that incident. But there are a few less creative moments that also resulted in a classmate sobbing.

...And if that first one can still make people laugh close to 15 years late it can't be that bad, right?

[Argento]

Originally Posted by alcimedes whatever. that kid was an annoying fuck. his losing $10 to pay for our movies was the rightous hand of God.

True.