Bullied Boy Fights Back

Have you seen this video yet?

When I first saw this video, I was like, ".. you GO BOY!!"

Agree with me or not, I don't care..

I live with a 12 year old boy who is picked on EVERYDAY in one way or another by kids in his class. For an adult, it's easier to see bullies for what they are. Maybe they're insecure... maybe they have issues going on at home that make them re-direct their anger and frustrations on some one "weaker" .. or maybe they're just an evil seed.

But that doesn't compute on a 12 year old.. it doesn't compute that his reactions only make the bully want to bully him more.

To be fair, teachers and school admins can only do so much .. if something happens on school grounds that's one thing.. if it's on the way home from school? Something completely different.

A few months ago, we received a call from the schools saying that one of the bullies punched him in the face.. during recess.. on school grounds. The kid got suspended and then re-assigned to another school and that's all fine, well and good .. but I was a little put off that he didn't try and hit the kid back.

Back in MY day, things were settled in the playground.. so to speak. I've gotten in WAY more then my share of fights with other kids in my school .. either because of something done to me or coming to the defense of my older brother .. but it was done.. it was settled.. and afterwards, things went back to normal.

It bothers me that not only did this kid DEFEND himself.. but HE will be the one getting in trouble, not the bully. You can clearly see who the instigator was.. and because I live with it, I can tell you that the bullied kid was probably taking this and taking this and taking this until he couldn't take it anymore.

Good for him!

I say forget all about the purple haze of huggy-feely-political-correctness and let boys be boys and handle things the way boys used to.

And before you start the argument about guns.. and knives... and bricks of C4 straps to a kids chest .. think about how things USED to be and be honest with yourself about the reasons why they're not that way anymore.

Passing Ridiculous .. Next Stop Sublime!!

Meet Consuela.

Isn't she a beauty?

Actually, this isn't Consuela. It's Consuela's hot twin sister Carmen.

Even though they're identical twins, Consuela's been around the block a few times and lived a fairly hard life so she wasn't up to having her picture taken. Not before she goes on Extreme Makeovers.
In all seriousness:

The picture is of a 1978 Dodge Southwind.. a class A motor home. The way it's suppose to look.

We found one on Craigslist for $800.00.

There's a reason why it was $800.00 but even though it was kind of beat up on the outside .. no dents or smashes or anything like that (the inside is a WHOLE other story) .. the engine had ridiculously low milage and Tim was confident that he could redo the inside so it didn't look so ghetto.. so redneck.. so like a bunch of illegal aliens made it their primary residence while floating over the Rio Grande.

Anyway.. when we were going to have the mobile home put on some one's property, a septic tank and a well was going to have to be dug. Since we weren't going to be able to live it in until then, Tim figured that Consuela would be needed for her bathroom and kitchen until we could actually live in the mobile. So we sent the owners half via Western Union (remember THAT whole folly?) and called them on Wednesday to let them know that we'd be up on Friday to give them the other half and change over the title and everything.

The plan was to get RV legal and then stay over at a campsite so that Tim could check it over and make sure it wasn't going to blow up on the 3.5 hour drive home.

Ok.. can I ask you this?

Why the HELL do we ever plan anything?? You think we would learn by now, huh? Nope.

Now.. let me just interject here that there was a issue with the kids because it comes into play later on in the day. The 12 y/o wasn't able to spend Friday night at his mother's place because she had plans. But we had the ducks in a row already so there really wasn't anything else to do but have the 16 y/o watch him. Not the most optimal situation but it is what it is.

Both kids were read the riot act but we really didn't have any big worries. The youngest would be on the Playstation until he fell asleep and the older one would be on the computer until he fell asleep. There was food in the house and enough toilet paper. The only worries I had was that the dogs would go without food and water but since we were only going to be over night, even the dogs would be fine.

It's 9am and we're just about to leave. I grab my cell phone and notice that there's a text message from Consuela's pimp saying that the roads were flooded due to the the torrential rain we had a few days before. Tim called him and left a message saying that we had to drive up anyway so instead of meeting him at 1:30, we'll just make it a little later. We were on the road when he called and said the water should be down in a few hours. Great.

So we spent almost 4.5 hours driving to Shunk, Pa. We had seen a sign the last time in that area that someone was selling lots of land. Tim wanted to go check it out and find out how much they were selling them for. We drive all the way out there and spend a whole 10 minutes learning that the lots were actually part of a development that didn't allow mobile homes and were running around 15g. Ridiculous.

Now it was almost a 2 hour drive west x southwest to Lock Haven.

We get there and finally see Consuela in person.. from across the road. We didn't feel right pulling up onto the property without first talking to the dude. So we called and texted and called again. Nothing back.

We happen to see this little jeep turn into the property so we waited a few minutes and went a head down the drive way. If worse came to worse, I'll go knocking on the damn door.

We pulled next to Consuela and she looked a little more beat up then I thought. Well. A lot more. I kept telling myself that cosmetics aren't that important. Yea. Right. Anyway, Tim got out of the car to give her the once over when this younger then me blond wearing a bandanna comes bopping out of the house.

She's the dude's wife. Annnnnnnnnnnnd she tells us that dude isn't around, he got called into work. AND there's no battery in Consuela (but she would get one) AND the title is with the guy they got Consuela from but never changed the title over AND she didn't have the keys. She could GET the keys.. but they were at her house a half hour away.

She also tells us that the dude with the title is driving back from his job in West Virginia. Niiiicccceeee.

Then she climbs in an open window and unlocks the door so we can see the inside. I wish she hadn't. I mean, you know, I don't want you to think that I was expecting the Taj Mahal .. but it wasn't as good as the bad I thought it was going to be. There was ALOT of water damage. The roof is going to have to be replaced and the cabinets are going to have to have something done to them. I should have taken pictures but I guess my subconscious knew better!

Right then and there, I wanted to just drive the hell back home and do this another day when they got their shit together. But Tim was insisting on waiting it out since we had already driven all that way and that he wanted to get it into a campsite and stay over night. I wasn't objecting to him wanting to check the damn thing out before he drove it. That's just smart. But I wasn't down on spending any money to stay in a hotel or motel or whatever. Spending another 60.00 in gas was better then spending 90.00 for a motel room in my mind.

But no.

Tim wants to see this thing through. So she's going to go home to get the keys while we drive to a campsite 8 miles away (keeping our fingers crossed that they were even open) .. reserve a spot and then go grab something to eat. By that time, she should be back with they keys and if the dude wasn't home from work yet,  we could at least take the thing, stay over night and finalize the transaction the next day.

Remember what I said about planning? Yea. I really need to know better!!

I had found Holiday Pines Campsite on the TomTom. The TomTom that always wants to kill me by making me drive obscenely narrow rodes through mountains.

This time was no different. The 8 miles was smack dab through Bald Eagle State Forrest on a make pretend road that wasn't only narrow, but also covered in snow and ice.

You do know that upstate PA gets snow WAY before we get it down here, right?

Life may be adventure but you know.. I can do without adventure every once in awhile.

The whole way I'm asking Tim if he's sure he can get Consuelo to make the trip down this road.. especially because there were long drops into nothing on either side at some points. But he was confident... possibly stupid.. that he could do it.

We get to Holiday Pines and not only are they open, but they had a spot for us and the couple who owns it were SOOOO nice. I would definitely recommend staying there if you're in the area. The best part was, they told us another way to get back to where we needed to go that did NOT involve driving through the mountain again.

It taked on another 27 miles going AROUND the mountain but at least it would be safer because we wouldn't have to deal with narrow roads, deep falls, ice, snow and darkness.

So we drive all the way back to Consuela. We sit there for another 20 minutes or so until the wife comes out and tells us, GUESS WHAT?? The keys weren't at home.. they were in the car that her husband drove to work.. in the gas fields.

I couldn't stop the words ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME from coming out of my mouth. And I know she felt bad.. I did.. deep down I know that stuff happens for a reason but that doesn't mean it isn't frustrating as all hell.

She offered to up us up at her house until the dude came back from work but I wasn't going for that. Since the dude was expected home around 730-ish.. and it was now 530-ish.. we figured we'd go get something to eat (which we didn't because of the time it took to get to and from the campsite) and hang around Mickey Dee's parking lot soaking up the free wifi.

It was there that I posted this message on Facebook:

Oh.. did I mention that it was snowing? Yea. Me we're talking about, remember?

So this is where all hell breaks loose.

Remember in the beginning I said that we had to leave both kids alone at home? Yea.. well.. we get a text message from their mother going off about us leaving the 12 year old home alone.. and how he's just a little boy.. and how it's illegal and blah blah blah.

Right away I called the 16 y/o's cell phone. No answer. I leave a message telling him to call me ASAP. I text him a message telling him to call me ASAP. Tim texts their mother and tells her that the 16 y/o is watching him and that there is nothing illegal about that.

I call the 16 y/o again.. no answer.. leave a message telling him to call me.. it's an emergency. I text him again and tell him it's an emergency and that he has to call me.

Nothing.

Tim texts their mother again and asking her were the 16 y/o is .. where the 12 year old is .. does she have them?

Nothing.

I call and text the 16 y/o again.. Tim calls their mother. She doesn't answer so he leaves a message saying that she can't text him going off about leaving the kids and then not pick up the phone. He needed to know where the 16 year old was an if the 12 year old was really by himself.

She finally sends a text message saying that he (Tim) knows it's wrong to leave the 12 year old alone and to leave her be.

Leave her be.

LEAVE HER BE???

That's her response. Says nothing else.. won't pick up the phone.. just drop a bombshell and just leave her be.

And you WONDER why I want to move 4 hours away??

We still wasn't able to get through to the 16 year old and they must have unplugged the house phone or let the cordless go dead because we couldn't get through on that either.

So what was there to do. What would you do? The only thing TO DO was to drive the 4 hours back home. Leaving when we did, we'd get home by 10:30.

We call the dude's wife and explain to her what was going on and that we'd be in touch to set up another time and hopefully then, they would have everything they needed and the deal would smooth through.

The way we figured it, the 16 y/o left the house to hang out with his friends. The 12 y/o being bored or just wanting sympathy from his mother, called her and told her he was by himself. Do I think the 16 y/o was going to be out with his friends all night? No .. but he probably left his cell phone with his brother in case we called and then his brother would cover for him saying that he was in the bathroom or something. Or maybe he kept the cell phone and just didn't answer when we called. Either way.. or no way.. it doesn't matter. We had to forgo our payment to the campsite and drive 200 miles at night.

I'm not a good night driver and especially not after driving for 9 ours already.

After about a 100 miles of driving, we stopped to put air in my tire when my cell phone rings. It's the 12 year old. I immediately ask him where the 16 year old is and he puts him on the phone. I ask him where he was all day and he says home but then he said his mother was beeping in so he put me on hold. Tim got back in the car and I handed him the phone. When his son got back on line, Tim laid into him.. wanting to know where he was and why he hadn't answered his phone.. he then told him that we were on our way home and hung up.

Another half hour goes by and the youngest calls. Are we really coming home? Tim said that we were and I'm sure what prompted that call was the older one bitching and complaining and wondering if they now had to clean the house before we got home.

Their idiots. You don't need a blue print to figure them out.

I wasn't saying to much because I WAS PISSED with a capital P. Deep down I know that things happen for a reason but it's the blatant disregard and disrespect that got under my crawl. And I can't express it out loud because I really don't want to hurt Tim's feelings about the bunch of self centered, selfish, manipulative kids he raised. Or the self centered, selfish, manipulative he chose to create them with.

Because really, what mother in HER RIGHT MIND is sooo concerned about her son being left alone in a house and then want to be left alone? If you're that worried, why didn't you cancel your plans and get your kid the way we wound up cancelling our plans and came home?

If you're that worried or concerned, why didn't you CALL instead of being a pussy ass bitch and text and say, ".. hey, what's going on? I talked to our son and he said he was by himself." .. or whatever kind of conversation adults have about their kids.

I wouldn't know.. because she NEVER calls and has an adult conversation. She always texts these bullshit inflammatory messages.. then refuses to pick up the phone. It's like dealing with another kid.

And when we got home, and found the youngest one in the living room watching tv and the older one on the computer with one of his friend's sitting next to him, I went off. I turned off the computer.. turned off the tv and told them both that I didn't care what they had to day because I already knew it was going to be a lie.. it was going to be some bullshit excuse that I'm way too smart to believe. That all they did was prove again that they couldn't be trusted and not only did there antics cost us about  100 dollars we don't have.. but all they're worried about is what's for dinner and getting what they want when they wanted without any regard for anybody else.

Definitely their mother's children.

The older one said that the younger one had his phone all day.. the youngest one said that the phone was on silent and that's why he didn't hear it.

Do I have STUPID on my forhead? A 16 year old who lets his younger brother use his cell phone? A 16 year old that has his cell phone on SILENT??

I told him that his cell phone is NEVER on silent and that I hear it going off all the time. But the best was when the older one said that his mother said that SHE told US that HE was HOME...

And I screamed... SHE. DID. NOT.    YOU. ALL. LIE.    YOU. ALL. MANIPULATE. YOU.    ALL. DON'T. GIVE. A. RATS. ASS. ABOUT. ANY. BODY. BUT. YOURSELVES.

And then Tim went off on them. About disconnecting the phone.. and not trusting them.. and how he didn't care if they weren't able to play their stupid computer game, the phone was NOT to be disconnected. The next time it is, the computer is getting trashed.

This afternoon the older one made a comment about him guessing he wasn't going to get the 20 bucks we were going to give him for staying him and watching his brother. Like, are you kidding me? Told you.. self centered and selfish.

So now the next time we go upstate.. they're coming with us. And I don't care if the older one gets carsick .. and I don't care if the younger one doesn't want to sit next to his brother all cramped up in the back seat.. I don't care that there will be no internet or tv or any modern convenience at all at the camp site. Read a fucking book.

Just What The HELL Is It With Us and TVs???

No.. this is NOT my tv but you get the idea

hmph.

Ok.

Remember that post I wrote a few days ago about how our 50" Flat Screen just up and died and we had to go on a quest to find a ceramic fuse the size of a finger nail?

And how we moved the really heavy and really old 36" tv from the bedroom into the living room because, yknow, HEAVEN FORBID the little princes didn't have anything to entertain them!

Well.. we finally did find the little fuse and even though it did make the tv go on... it doesn't stay on. Maybe 10-15 minutes at the most before it clicks off again.

Tim seems to think it's the power board itself and was able to find one online for something like 80 bucks but right now that's not in our budget so the old tv remained in the living room.

Last night we had the house to ourselves. One kid was there and the other kid was someplace else so I took the opportunity to sit in the living room and play Call of Duty on the flat screen.

I know.. I know.. I JUST SAID that it pops off every 10 or 15 minutes or so but what can I tell you? I'm a glutton for disappointment!

After having two games ruined, Tim hooked the PS3 to the old tv. Let me tell you, there's a BIG difference between 36 and 50 but I was happy just to sit on the lounge chair!

Now, here's the thing (as if it couldn't get any worse) .. we had two plugs that connect the PS3 to the old television. One was bad (it made everything look blurry) and the other was good. When we first set up the old tv, Tim told his 15 year old Matt to throw out the bad cord and give me the good cord so that I could put it away where it was suppose to go.

So what the the Lord of Laziness do? He gives me both cords. There was no way of knowing which was the good one and which was the bad one so I had to put them both way. So of course, when Tim hooked up the PS3, he did it with the bad cord.

Since it was kind of an ordeal, I tried playing with a blurry screen but after a few rounds I started getting a headache so I asked Tim if we could just change the cord before he went to sleep.

No problem.. he asked me to unplug the cord from behind the PS3 while he connected or disconnected the wire from the back of the tv.

All of a sudden?

CRASH BAM BOOM

I snapped my head around and there's the tv laying face down on the floor. Laying on the floor after having fallen off the 3.5 foot kitchen cart (the one with wheels). I guess he pulled on the wire.. or I pulled on the wire too hard and the cart went one way and the tv the other.

Neither of us wanted to pick it up because we were both afraid that the tube was shattered but we couldn't live in laying in the middle of the living room floor either.

We finally did. The screen wasn't broke and when we plugged it in and turned it on, it worked fine.

Except the screen looked like a rainbow on crack. Obviously the color tubes got screwed up and there really isn't much you can do about that.

Honestly, I'm not worried about it. The flat screen in my bedroom works just fine and I could care less that the boys have to watch rainbow tv or only 15 minutes at a shot.

But really.. I think we need a break (no pun intended) from wrecking tv's.

Motivation

There's this young black girl that comes into the store. I think she's something like 14 or 15 but because of her height you'd think she was older.

At least I did ..

Anyway.. so.. she comes in fairly regularly and takes a good half hour to decide what she wants to buy and then only spends like a quarter or something.

One day she tells me that she's cheap.. that she doesn't like to spend money. Coming from a teen, I was impressed and told her that that was a good quality to have in life and would serve her well when she gets older.

Coming from someone who used to drop WHOLE PAYCHECKS on a pair of shoes, I think that I am qualified to tell her that!!

A few times after, she came in and told me that the reason why she doesn't like to spend money is because she is saving for a bicycle. She needs one and her mother won't buy it for her so she's saving her money to buy it herself.

THAT scored major points with me because Tim's youngest son has had four bikes stolen in three years because he's too lazy to bring them onto the front porch.. AND isn't responsible enough to NOT lose the key to the lock OR remember a combination to a lock.. so he just leaves his bike on the side of the house and it gets stolen.

Every.
Single.
Time.

So I'm not buying him anymore bikes. Refuse to. I think he only rode the last one like.. twice.. so that's why God gave you legs, Bucky..!

So.. off track.

Anyway.. I happen to mention the conversation with the girl to Tim and told him that I have a lot of respect for her. Yes, her spending a half hour in the store asking how much everything is every single time is a pain in the ass but you have to give credit where credit is due and considering his kids think their hearts desire should be presented to them on silver platters by toga wearing servants.. it's just refreshing.

So that's the back story.

Last week, we put a Toomey/Meehan sign in our window. I'm not going to go into that because everybody who knows us knows our political stance. In fact, when the Delco Patriots visited the store, they were reluctant to ask us to put a sign in our window because they didn't want our business to be hurt. I was like, ".. hell, we had a McCain/Palin sign in our window and we're still open."

This morning, Tim tells me this:

.. you know that girl you have a lot of respect for? Yea.. well.. she came in the store last night and I made her cry

My eyes got as big as Gaga's in the Bad Romance video and I was like, WTF??? Bad enough that we're justhisclose to closing the store anyway and you're making customer's CRY?

O.M.F.G!!

He tells me when she came in last night that she asked what the Toomey/Meehan sign was and he explained to her about the up coming elections and that the two running were Republicans. She made a face and said that Republicans don't help anyone. Tim told her that that wasn't true.. that he wasn't sure what she's grown up hearing but Republicans are charitable and isn't it better to donate because you WANT to as oppose to HAVING to?

I'm not sure exactly what words caused the transition but he wound up saying to her that she could be anything she wanted to be.. even President if she chose.

She shook her head no. ".. I could never be President."

Tim was like, "... of course you can! You can be anything you want to be.. the only thing stopping you is YOU! You're smart.. beautiful.. perfect just the way God made you."

And that's when she started to cry.

Other kids came into the store then so he shoved a handful of candy in a bag.. gave it to her.. and suggested that she might want to leave so she wouldn't be embarrassed.

Tim said to me this morning that that was probably the first time she had ever heard that in her life and it made me feel bad for her because you never know the life someone is living behind closed doors. I always say that kids are clean slates and only absorb what they're exposed to.

Maybe his words to her and her reaction to them brighten her spirit and erased some of the negative things she's heard in her life.

Maybe one day she WILL be a president.. of this country or of a corporation. Maybe she won't but maybe she'll be successful in whatever she chosed to do and maybe it will be because of what he said to her.

Most times, he can be a douche. I'm glad he wasn't yesterday and I hope that he got as much out of it as, hopefully, she did.