Where Ladybugs Roar

Confessions and Passions of a Compulsive Writer

Friday, January 8, 2010

Laurel, well played, but the establishment wins

So, I opened up my daughter's folder to find a note from the girl that had bullied her. I thought, "Oh, that's nice that she apologized." Next, I realized that Laurel had been "encouraged" to write the note.

No, it's not because I'm cynical, though, I am. Wait for it.

So, this was not Laurel's first draft and that's when I laughed. That's right. I laughed. My poor daughter was being bullied and I found Laurel's attempt to thumb her nose at the establishment hilarious and, yes, bold. A little part of me thought, "Bravo, you vicious little thing. If you're going down, check those boundaries first."

Laurel's version (pre-censoring) : B, I am sorry someone was a bully to you and I will not bully you the rest of the school year.

Post-censoring: B, I'm sorry that I was a bully to you and I will not bully you ever again.

I don't know who Laurel is, but some part of me laughs when I think of this girl rolling her eyes and erasing the whole "rest of the school year" business while thinking, "Crap! Give me a little wiggle room, will you? Ever is a really long time."

See, editors--they're harsh even on the younger, bullying crowd. Anyway, it was nice of her, and the school is watching out for it. My sense of humor might be a tad bit too broad, though, since I found it funny.

Well, it's flashy fiction Friday, and I haven't done flash fiction all week. Gasp! I know, I'm a slacker. Plus, now, I'm going back to working on Honor Among Thieves. Honor still makes me laugh and that probably indicates a split personality disorder, but I don't care.

Okay, that's it. I might tweet the lines that make me laugh as I run across them.

7 comments:

  1. Oh yay! Tweet them because it they'll make me laugh and it would entertain me, and isn't that you're number one goal? In life??

    B's Bully is a resistant little thing, and she has some gonads to flaunt a teacher-mandated note with that kind of rebellion.

    My daughter (I need to come up with some kind of cute abbreviation. All three of my kids start with an A so that would become confusing... all middle name's are with an M... must think on this...) she will have her first detention slip come home today. Her English workbook is on the dining room table where she left it last night, and that's an auto-detention in this class. She's going to go into hysterics. Being in trouble has never been on her resume before.

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  2. I'd love to read the tweets. I need to laugh!

    Glad to hear that the bully problem has been fixed (at least for now). I really hate kids who do that. My oldest has been bullied before, so I know how you feel.

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  3. Wow, she has some guts. But I'm so glad it was dealt with! Looking forward to your tweets.

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  4. I gotta say that this post creeped me out a bit at first, because my one & only bully experience was by a girl named Laurel in the 5th grade! That name just jumped out at me! Ha! OK I'm calm now....this Laurel could be my Laurel's grandkid! Ha!

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  5. Where's Honor when you need her to kick someone? I'm one of those parents that gets extremely violent when one of my young is threatened. Some little boy pushed Chloe down and she cut her hand on the rocks...oh, boy. I basically ranted about it for 45 minutes. I went into excruciating detail on what this boy was facing if he ever came face-to-face with me. My boy was wide-eyed through the entire thing.

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  6. Bold little stinker! Surprised she didn't write:

    "I'm sorry you didn't like it when I was mean to you."

    Sheesh.

    Shelley

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