As a survivor of schoolbus taunting (I distinctly remember high school pre-drivers license, the A holes at the back of the bus screaming BEKAH BUTTSMELLER! EY BEKAH BUTTSMELLER! Sure, one of them later became my boyfriend for 4 years, but still. So WHAT if I’m in high school and my Mom still does my hair and I never take off my yellow Buddy Holly glasses? SO WHAT, and other things that make this sentence in the middle of another sentence very long) I really relate to this School Bus Monitor pictured above. A group of middle school boys (is there a worse age, for boys?) made fun of her, as they always did, on the bus ride home, but this time, somebody filmed it and it went viral. They call her fat, ugly, tell her that she’s ‘so ugly her kids should kill themselves.’ Little did they know, one of her sons actually had committed suicide.
Reading what these guys said to her – it all feels so familiar, and I weirdly get it. I remember middle school, and the things we said to each other, especially the meaner ones. No one even knows what they’re saying. Everything you say outloud in middle school is so that someone else will hear it. It’s not even for you. I remember this one kid telling me I was ‘too fat to exist’ so then I pulled down his soccer shorts. But! Happy ending: someone started an online donation center to send this lady on a cruise, and now she’s got $400K. I love this so much, and Mt. Tabor, I patiently await my compensation funds, for Costa Rica emotional distress.