Bullying!

This is a ginormous topic of conversation here in Buffalo right now, for obvious reasons.  Jamey Rodemeyer's suicide all because he was bullied for being gay, happened in my school district, in the schools where my daughter will be going.  It puts a name and a face on things here.  It makes me worried for Annabelle in the future.  I don't want her bullied or to be the bully either.  I hope I wouldn't be the parent that is too stupid to realize that she was terrorizing another child.  I don't think that would happen but you never know.

All of that aside, I'm writing this because I was bullied.  I had a couple of moments when in school where people zeroed in on me as the weak kid, but I always fought back.  Not with fists flying but with my brain.  But I'm not why I'm talking here about this because I was bullied last week!  In a Michael's craft store!  By a woman who looked to be in her 40's!

I was really taken aback when it happened but I stood my ground.  I had run into Michael's to buy some ribbon.  Once I found the perfect shade of gold that I needed, I went up to the registers, perused the lines and chose the shortest one.  One line had maybe 10-12 people in it, while the other had only 2.  I asked the guy who was checking out if the register was only for returns, just to make sure and he replied that I could stay there.

That is when the bullying started.  A woman walked up to me, got right in my face, and told me to leave the line.  They had formed one line, were waiting for their turn and that I was rude.  Now I am, by far, rarely ever rude.  I am the people pleaser to a T.  If she had said anything to me nicely, I would have skulked my way over to the end of the long line and this would be a very different post.  But she made me mad!  I told her I wasn't leaving the line and if she had a problem with that, then she had to deal with it.  The lady (obviously I'm using this term loosely) stomped away muttering how SHE had things to do and that HER time was important and SHE had to be home to pick up her child from school in an hour and a half. 

About two minutes later, a manager walks up front to help a customer, when that very important lady stomps on over to her and gets in her face.  She demanded that I as well as the few other people now in line behind me, get to the back of the long line.  Because that is how they always line up at Michael's, not a different line for each register, right?  The manager seemed pretty flustered by this but did explain that there should be different lines for each cashier and that we could stay put.

At that point, the woman behind me, started laughing and whispered to me, "She just tattled on you!"  It was the funniest thing I had heard since walking into the store.  At the same time though, I'm pretty sure she will be the parent with her head in the sand when her kid starts bullying.  How else are her children going to learn right from wrong when their own mother doesn't know the difference.  I'm pretty sure she thought she could intimidate me because she thought I was younger than I am.   But I stood up for myself and that felt good.