THe BuLLy oN THe BuS

So, Tukey comes home from school and tells me that a kid in our neighborhood who is also on his bus said a bad word today. I asked him about it.

He said two boys got on the bus. I know these two boys. They’re older than Tukey. They may have a little bit of a reputation of being, I don’t know, not rough, but they both have older siblings and they’ve been around the block.

The nicer of the two asked Tukey if he could sit next to him. Tukey said, in which I hoped was a nice tone, “I kind of want to sit by myself today.” In his defense he is “Star of the Week” in first grade so he’s got a huge tackle box with him that he has to carry and it was probably next to him on the seat. He also had his snow pants and snow boots in another bag so he was probably pretty squished on the seat. I’m sure he was not mean when he said he wanted to sit by himself. He also told me that there were plenty of other seats on the bus.

The kid who asked if he could sit next to Tukey said, “That’s fine,” and went to find another seat.

HOWEVER, the OTHER kid, the one who has not so great of a reputation, did not take too kindly to the situation.

When Tukey got home from school, he began relaying this story to me, and up to this point, he was telling me everything.

“And then, the nice kid went to find his seat but the other kid leaned over by me and said a bad word to me,” Tukey told me.

“What did he say to you?”

I was not expecting the next words to come from my first grader’s tiny little precious mouth:

“He said, ‘Fuck you.’”

I just stood there.

Then I said, “He said that?”

“Yep.”

“Hmmm.”

“Are you going to tell his mom? You have to tell his mom!”

And yeah, Diva and Ajers are right there too, saying, “YOU HAVE TO TELL HIS MOM ON HIM!”

My immediate reaction was OF COURSE! I want to tell his mom! I want to run right over there and say, “Do you know what your boy is spewing from his potty mouth? Do you have any idea what kind of words are coming from him? Do you kiss your son with that mouth of his!?!?!?”

But I couldn’t do that! Because then this potty-talking-Eff-Bomb-dropping-no-doubt-lying son would deny he drops the Eff bomb on the bus and then this mom would have it out for me and then I’d be living on Wisteria Lane! And I don’t feel like living the life of a Desperate Housewife right now.

So, I said I would think about it, knowing full well I would NEVER tell the mom that her son is an Eff-Bomb dropper.

However, if this was a close friend of mine, you can bet your sweet ass I’d march right over there and tell her I loved her but her kid was an Eff-Bomb dropper. Fortunately, I don’t know this mom very well.

So, I was still thinking about it, and secretly in a warped way, it kind of cracked me up that my serious little boy had said “fuck you” when he relayed the story to me, but I know it bothered him quite a bit to have someone tell him that.

About two hours later, I went up to him and I said, “I know what you should do next time.”

He said that when the kid said EFF YOU that he had whispered it to Tukey, so obviously, he knew it was bad. I asked Tukey if Tukey was larger than this kid. Tukey said he is about two inches taller than the other kid is, even though he is one or two years older than my Tukey.

I said, “OK, next time you are faced with an incident like this, you look the person in the eye, because first of all, obviously, the kid knew he was doing something VERY WRONG because he was whispering, and he was definitely trying to scare you, and intimidate you, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“You stand up, you look the kid in the eye and you say, loud and clear, “DID YOU JUST SAY THE EFF WORD TO ME?

I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THE EFF WORD? DO YOU KNOW HOW BAD A WORD THAT IS? WHY ARE YOU SAYING THE EFF WORD TO ME ON THE BUS? ARE YOU CRAZY? YOU MUST BE CRAZY MAN, TO SAY A WORD LIKE THAT!”

If he says it with enough conviction and enough gumption and enough strength and sincerity and belief goes behind his words (because come on, you can’t tell me that a second grader saying the EFF word is NOT crazy, right?) then everyone’s gonna believe the kid is crazy! And maybe he’ll second-guess his craziness and stop being such a crazy eff-bomb-droppin’ bully a-hole!

And here’s another thing. No way am I gonna confront his mom.
But you can bet your sweet lovin’ ass that the next time I get my sights on that kid alone, I’m gonna lean right up close to him in his little and lonely personal space and whisper this:

“Hey honey, you ever swear at my kid again, you’re gonna wish you never knew the EFF word existed.”