by Mona Yasir

Created on: January 15, 2009   Last Updated: January 23, 2009

Our memories of school bullies, and how they made us feel, are often more vivid in our minds than memories of anything else from our years at school. Even today, the very mention of bullies sends alarm bells ringing in my head. Or is that just a school bell I can hear?

If like me, you spent your high school years being pushed around and even beaten up on occassion by the resident bully, you will carry around memories that can often be quite disturbing even as an adult. But wasn't it the school bully, with his massive paunchy presence, his bad breath and his vulgar habits who defined that era of our lives? I mean, what kind of boring stories would we have to tell and who would have put us through our character-building classes if it hadn't been for Billy The Skull.

But bullies come in all shapes and sizes, including some that take the form of the gorgeous, popular school celebrity. You remember her, Miss pretty-with-perfect-skin who could do no wrong, except when she refused to include you and made you feel this small. It's a sad but undeniable fact that every child at some point must suffer the unjust humiliation and scorn that is mercilessly delivered at the hands of another child. It seems to be a rite of passage from childhood into the ugly world of reality.

I sometimes wonder though what it might have been like to be at the other end of the snickering and beating. What a burden of responsibility the school bully must have carried to always have to maintain his tough reputation. I wonder, sometimes, did the poor kid suffer as much as we did? Did he lie awake at night worrying about being shown up by some snotty-nosed little punk in glasses and unlaced sneakers?

When you send your own kids off to elementary or high school, you find yourself subduing the urge to pull them back into the house and hide. They look so happy, so oblivious to the shame and degradation that awaits them through those big iron gates. And you know they'll never tell you what goes on in there. I mean did you tell your parents? No, of course not, because your Mom would have marched right up to the bully and said something along the lines of, Don't you dare pick on my poor little Wilber,' or something similar. That would have been even more mortifying. You would have ended up hanging upside down in your underwear in the changing rooms or found some putrefied animal remains in your lunch box the very next day. And boy can those bullies work fast to think up new and ever-more creative ways to tear your dignity to shreds. It makes you kind of wish you had a little bit of Carrie inside you. They weren't kidding in that movie with all the pig's blood and intestines, you know. I've seen worse come out of my school locker.

All the consolation to be had was that the bell would definitely ring in the afternoon and you would definitely be allowed to leave the premises. Well, at least until the next day when it would begin all over again and you would find yourself hiding in the toilets on a mission impossible to avoid enemy contact.

You wonder now how you ever made it out alive but having engaged the enemy and survived the war with only a few impermanent battle wounds, you know that you are now ready to face the dragons of life with a strong heart and the mighty sword of your qualifications.

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