Bullying coping strategies? (epic length-even for me!)

[crazyofficeclerk]

It may help to switch up the seating arrangement in the room. As much of a benefit that groups can be, it does allow for bullying to take place because of the closeness of students. Note are easily passed and situations like the erasers are common. You may want to go to pairs for a while or even go to singles. The other thing that I found that was helpful was to watch room placement for individuals. Some kids need to be front and center while others crave being in the back of the room. Then I would have to figure out if that particular student could handle being in that location.

[MoonCat]

I never really understood the wisdom of allowing the kids to choose who got to be on which team.

All that ever did was highlight who the "cool" kids in class were and single out the "losers" by virtue of them always being the last chosen.

^-.-^

Oh god yes. Some of my most vivid--and worst--memories of grade school were of this very situation. Know what was even uglier? Being made the captain and being forced to pick kids who did not want to be on my team. I still remember a kid screaming, "come on, come on, just pick your friends!!"

I didn't have any.

[Hyndis]

Honestly, back when I was a kid and dealing with some pretty major bullying what got everybody to stop was me taking on the biggest bully. No, it isn't something I recommend to others but it did get the physical bullying to stop. But then when you see a 5-foot-fuck-all twig throw a much larger girl across the gym locker room people tend to not want to cross said victim's path.

This was also true for me.

It was pretty bad, until I broke the main bully's nose in front of all of his friends, after they were surrounding me and pummeling me.

One broken nose later, everything changed forever. From then on no one would bother me, and I actually became popular.

Of course that won't work today. Today, with all of the silly zero tolerance policies, I'm sure I'd have been expelled or even arrested by the police for standing up for myself.

But thats a topic for another thread!

[Gizmo]

I agree on this and so does my mentor teacher.

The kid in question only joined the class this year, whereas most of the class have been together since Class One, with some of them coming in before that (i.e. kindergarten or playgroup). Before that, she has moved around a LOT between schools, so I don't think she's had the chance to work on those social skills.

This is a huge factor in this - I joined a new school at age 8 and was a quiet withdrawn girl whose reading age was lightyears ahead of most of the other children (They didn't believe me and put me about 5 book 'levels' down from my prior school at first). I had an unusual accent (more queens English than 'ampshire hog) and didn't come from a background where interaction with other children went well (Mostly due to being surrounded by very easy going parents - even when one child was throwing hard toys at me!). It painted a huge target on my back.

Add to that I wasn't a 'designer me generation' child and had no interest in celebrities, looking pretty, boys, expensive things or being popular and you have a disaster waiting to happen for a child growing up in the 90's. (Let alone the fact I was reading 10-12 books a week when most of them would struggle with basic text books even in to their teens.)

It did a terrible thing to me: I learnt other children are irrelevant and unnecessary effort. Not only did I pay for it for the rest of my school career but I still suffer with issues caused by it now.

As for the child I agree with the people above. Separate out the bullies, put them on the spot and bring them back to the subject of the lesson. Every time the teachers would specially help *me* on the issues they were worse due to being considers 'teachers pet'.

On one occasion a particularly vicious bully (but not a ringleader) was brought to heel by actually being forced to work with me on a class project and actually realised I wasn't that bad. (It doesn't always work as another class project with a bully totally mucked things up and made it worse. You have to gauge the level of response they are likely to produce.)

[Gizmo]

Of course that won't work today. Today, with all of the silly zero tolerance policies, I'm sure I'd have been expelled or even arrested by the police for standing up for myself.

Oh, the two times I actually defended myself and some other girl got hurt (sorry, got scratched or a graze from falling over) *I* got in trouble more than they did. The other times when I got hurt or physically marked all the teachers happened to be looking the other way.

I actually got my ear canal scratched and immediately accompanied to my doctors thinking they'd actually damaged my ear drum (which they possibly could of considering the problems I have now but wasn't evident at the time) but the only person who got written up was me.

[sstabeler]

yeah, that's another thing- how come the zero-tolerance policies are only ever enforced against the victims? I lots count of the number of times that i had been bulled, snapped, and ended up punished ( usually, I got sent out of the room. And just to dispel any notion it was for my safety, on beign let in? I was told not to act like that again. needless to say, it made things far worse.)

[MoonCat]

yeah, that's another thing- how come the zero-tolerance policies are only ever enforced against the victims? I lots count of the number of times that i had been bulled, snapped, and ended up punished ( usually, I got sent out of the room. And just to dispel any notion it was for my safety, on beign let in? I was told not to act like that again. needless to say, it made things far worse.)

Because some teachers don't want to deal with the real problem--the bullies. Or I should say, the bullies, the useless school admin people, including the principal or whoever is in charge, and the parents (who are usually bullies themselves--where do you think the kids get it from?). But when a kid snaps and fights back, suddenly it can't be ignored and they have to do something...and they already know the victim's parents aren't going to make any noise, because if they were so inclined, they would already have been up in the teacher's face for letting their kid be bullied in the first place. And they know the head of the school will back them on ONE kid being in trouble, but not on a whole group, because that's too difficult for admin to deal with.

[sstabeler]

I know, though you're wrong on one point- my parents DID make a quite a lot of noise about me being bullied, and I STILL never got much help from teachers. Yeah.

I've known one teacher that was either so clueless that I wonder how they got qualified, or actively helping the bullies though, ( one bully shouting something right in my face directly in front of the teacher, and some very suspicious circumstances regarding some woodwork i was doing that kept getting damaged by bullies. (and the teacher had the raw cheek to take marks off due to the effects of the damage )) so some teachers go above and beyond in not dealing with bullies. (that particular bully basically got away with everything in the end because by the time the school got serious about dealing with it, nobody trusted the school to do anything.)

[fireheart]

Re zero-tolerance policies: they are non-existent down here in Australia. I suspect this is due to the values of a "fair go". For the most part, bullies are dealt with by the teacher sitting both bully and victim down and making them work through it together.

I should add that she has done much better this week. Although there are suggestions that she may have aspergers, but nobody is sure.

[Jester]

I have a few things to say about this. Oh, do I ever.

In grade school, I was somewhat bullied. Physically. My father told me I needed to punch the guys picking on me square in the face. Since I was deathly afraid of REALLY getting my ass kicked, I never did this. Perhaps I should have. But luckily for me, I was basically the class clown, and I found that even the bullies wouldn't hit the guy making them laugh all that much. (Besides, have you ever tried to hit someone while you're laughing? It ain't easy!)

In junior high and high school, I dealt with other bullying and bullshit that was unwarranted. Unlike in grade school, in these later situations, I eventually ended the bullying with swift and brutal reactions. Without going into details (unless people want me to, that's up to y'all), my reactions caused each bullying incident to end immediately.

While I have less than fond memories of the various bullies I dealt with, in an odd way I'm thankful to them, for they helped make me the man I am today, which is a man who has scared the living crap out of guys much larger than me with a simple look and calmly spoken phrase. That part of me was molded by the bullies. (I should note that at various times when she was younger my niece Dragon was also bullied, and as she has grown up, she too has developed a hard no-bullshit side to her that I am rather proud of.)

That, however, does not make bullying right, or the bullies the good guys. And my experiences are clearly different than your student, as they are not being physically bullied, and as a teacher, you can't really advise your students to punch someone in the face. Though if someone is throwing erasers at them, it might behoove them to throw the erasers right back, maybe even with a laugh to make it clear that the whole thing is stupid. Though this student may not be wired to do things that way.

I would also recommend a meeting with the rest of the class to point out how their treatment of her is NOT helping things along.

I have to respectfully but definitely disagree with you here. This would be the equivalent of telling the class, "You are bothering her, so stop." Kids being kids are going to realize they are getting to her, and so will up their game. Because to them, it really is a game. I know that every single time my parents or teachers "went to bat" for me when I got some shit from some yahoo bully, I just got it worse. It was only when I dealt with the situations myself that they got resolved.

That is not to say there aren't things the teacher can do. I just don't think this is one.

My advice, though admittedly colored by being the victim of bullying? First, it's probably a good idea to use more visible punishments- as in, telling he bullies to cut it out when they start on her, giving detentions, etc.

A note on punishing bullies; don't just punish them for picking on a specific target; that only makes the target likely to get more bullying abuse.

Also, make a point of telling them how their action of X is wrong to do to others. Don't name who it's wrong to do it against; include everybody.

This, however, is. Rather than saying, "Class, don't pick on Suzie," when Johnny throws an eraser at Suzie, say "Johnny, don't throw erasers." And the next time when he does it--and he will--say, "Johnny, I told you not to throw erasers. Now you get to go to detention/clean the chalkboards after class/clean the hamster cage/whatever punishment is appropriate in the given school.

And DEFINITELY separate the troublemakers. "Johnny, since you and Joey simply CANNOT stop talking during the lesson, you are going to have to move over here, and Joey over there." Teachers that did this when I was in school soon found that the kids being separated learned real quick not to fuck around with Mr. Teacher. Also, this method keeps the spotlight away from "don't bully Suzie" and more proactively on "don't misbehave."

Honestly, back when I was a kid and dealing with some pretty major bullying what got everybody to stop was me taking on the biggest bully.

This will work for physical bullying, but with the more verbal bullying, it's not the biggest bully, physically speaking, but the one causing the most trouble, whatever that is. The thing is, this is something that only the bullied student can do, and they either will or won't do it. Teachers can suggest it (maybe), but it's something they are really going to have to learn on their own.

I don't really know what to say, because almost everything suggested here made my school life worse.

It is important to note that, while many of us have dealt with bullying in our lives, what happened to US will not be identical to what is happening to this particular student. What didn't work for one of us may well work for this student. They may be dealing with stuff at home, as some people here did, or they may not be, as I wasn't. (I was just smaller than most of the other boys, so I was a natural physical target.) As much as we'd like to relate our own experiences to this child, the situation is not the same, and there is no simple solution that any or all of us can offer. I do hope, however, that this student is able to have more success than you did, and that they do so sooner than I did.

Doing things for her will make things worse, but helping her to learn how to do things for herself should make her stronger.

Absolutely. A lesson that she is going to have to learn on her own, though.

The kid in question only joined the class this year, whereas most of the class have been together since Class One, with some of them coming in before that (i.e. kindergarten or playgroup). Before that, she has moved around a LOT between schools, so I don't think she's had the chance to work on those social skills.

Ah, the New Kid syndrome. I knew it well: two grade school, one junior high, three high schools, over three towns in three states. Especially tough to be the New Kid when everyone else has known each other forever. And that makes it that much easier and more convenient to be the target.

Hope things continue to progress for your student, and hopefully some of what we have said here will help you deal with this situation, and others like it that are bound to come along in your future as a teacher.

[Mishi]

In junior high and high school, I dealt with other bullying and bullshit that was unwarranted. Unlike in grade school, in these later situations, I eventually ended the bullying with swift and brutal reactions. Without going into details (unless people want me to, that's up to y'all), my reactions caused each bullying incident to end immediately.

While I have less than fond memories of the various bullies I dealt with, in an odd way I'm thankful to them, for they helped make me the man I am today, which is a man who has scared the living crap out of guys much larger than me with a simple look and calmly spoken phrase. That part of me was molded by the bullies.

Yup, that's pretty much how it worked out for me too. Though, I've also accidentally intimidated people by standing quietly and looking bored.

As Fireheart noted, we don't really have enforced zero-tolerence codes, we have discussions and mediation. So most kids end up sorting things out on their own instead of involving teachers and parents, because its not worth the hassle.

Its great to hear about your student's improvement, I hope that it keeps continuing.

[Der Cute]

May I say something? I wasn't a student that was bullied. I was a student that was put into "honors" classes; Honors English vs English. But my social/interaction skills sucked and STILL suck. Can I give some thoughts?

Now, a few things that should provide some more insight into the behaviour of said student (while the school wouldn't check their files, I figured it would be best to keep it gender-neutral):

-Said student does not participate in classroom sports games. They WILL participate in Bothmer, Music and all other lessons, except for sports games. When they are poked to participate by the teachers, they are very sullen and quiet. For instance, in a game of Capture The Flag, they will act as a guard for their "home base", but the guard work involves them sitting down and doing nothing.

Sports means teamwork and interaction; when you have shit self esteem or are really unsure of how to deal with individual people, you isolate yourself. I'd rather sit in a corner and think about how dust is created than play football/soccer. She needs to learn that it's ok to play - but if you create " you play this while they play that" would create a target. Try something like "We're gonna shake this up. I draw names from the bucket, that's the team you're on. The last name I pull from each bucket - is the base holder for the first game. After that, you make the decisions." Might help to inject her into the game. Or hitch her to someone who's not an asshole to be "side guard" and start with that skill.

-According to a relief teacher, said student has a thing for blood and vampires. To the point where other students know about it. And of course, said student also likes Vampire Knight. (I am having to remind them to NOT discuss it in class-students are not to discuss things they've seen on TV or similar. If they see it in public-fine. Manga? fine.)

Try "chatting" and see if the vamp/blood is from a family member's interest in it - is she mimicking or even just seeing the "my sister does this, I might like it"? If this student is above the comprehension levels, try giving her a book on vamps/monsters/etc. The Frankenstein book. Have her read that and give a report equal to the other kid's reports - same "read it, opinion, would you change etc" but her book is a bit different. You include her tastes but also up it a notch. (if she's already up that notch). Any other icky-gory books that are classics/harder than average? Find those.

-Said student has had a reputation for "giving up" when it's too hard, although they appear to be improving.

-Said student has a tendency to wander or similar if they are sent out of class (which only happened today), or wandering out of bounds if they have free play time (which is quite a bit)

-Said student does have a few "friends" of sorts, but I am not sure how "close" they are to them. One of the friends is a girl who has been earmarked as a loner, but still appears to get on OK.

-Said student however, is very eager to participate in lessons such as English, Maths, Science and such. They LOVE to paint and draw though-if given free time, they will dig out their pencils and a sketchpad and GO. NUTS.

-Said student is also quite easy to distract if their emotions are running hot.

She does not have a way/common interest to chat with the others. I would guess she's also above the class's level of working. Can you have her tested for comprehension etc? I think she's part bored "meh I already know this shit" and "they all suck eggs". She's also interested in art. I want to say - she's like me. Linear thinking, objective, full conceptual but analytical. And lets shit go with the pencil/art. Tune the pencil into the sciences. LOL have her translate Beowulf (I hated that!!!) and/or sketch it out in pics. (but, that might discourage her and say "you draw fun stuff too much"). It sounds like she's not really challenged, imo.

And with that said, the bullying issue is at hand. It is not necessarily physical, rather it is primarily verbal taunts and them being harsher on her than on their own classmates. For instance, if one classmate makes a mistake, nothing will be said of it. If said student however makes the same mistake, they are immediately attacked for it. Some of it may be positive at times (for instance, getting them to play in class sport), at other times it is absolutely harsh. Which brings me to today's incident.

We have the kids sitting in groups, with 2 boys and 2 girls to a group. The two boys that were sitting with said student started throwing eraser pieces at her, so she retaliated by doing the same. Unfortunately, she was the one caught and sent out of the classroom. When she returned to the classroom, somebody placed glue on her pencil case, which she (and initially I also) mistook for spit and started crying, resulting in her being sent out of class for a breather.

I let her vent and sent her off to wash her face. When she returned, she was still upset though and screamed at another classmate when asked to put her chair up (as they all had). The classmate in question was promptly sent outside along with the rest of the class for some free play to let her calm down.

I did relay it to my mentor teacher regardless of what happened and while I know she will say something to the class, the relief teacher mentioned providing her with some coping skills.

This brings me to my question: what coping skills am I able to provide to a 11/12-year-old student to help her cope with bullying? all I can think of is encouraging them to "throw" themselves into their studies, but she struggles like crazy in some areas.

Coping skills I know of:
Mindfulness: Logic extreme end of stick. Emotional extreme end of stick. Mindfulness...middleish of stick. Can she back the emotions up a bit and see "they are bullying me. They are throwing stuff at me. Logic says they don't like me". (ok, truth, but you've identified what's going on, now work on stopping it.)

With that you go to square breathing. Inhale to count of 4. Hold to count of 4. Exhale count of 4. Calm self down. Stop the panic reaction, tone it a bit. Practice this a LOT

Distraction from current bullying: find something to think about - if you don't show a reaction, they (assholes) might stop their behavior. What I do when I get riled up? I start counting car colors as I drive. "Hey, we've had 4 reds today. Let's count blue". Her would be "how many people have long hair. How many have short hair. What is the surface area of those walls?" She'd be brain-busy, not reacting immediately to the taunts, which MIGHT let the assholes know she's immune(ish) to their behavior. So they keep tossing erasers. The teacher catches them doing it. Pull assholes out; NO THROWING PERIOD. She didn't report them, she IGNORED THEM, their behavior was caught and THEY HAD A CONSEQUENCE. (how to ignore - breathing, distraction)

Changing response/anger/violence. "hey, c'mere. It feels like you draw a lot of vampire/bloody stuff, right?" "uh yeah" "Can you try to imagine something else and draw that out? But imagine with all 5 senses. Your art is really really good - the shadowing and depth are great. This is gonna sound funny, but I want you to draw/doodle a forest for me. Yeah, right when you step into one, or are in it? Focus. Smell it. Hear it. See it. Taste it? Feel it. Go for that, ok?" Or find something else closer to home. Draw a library. Your bedroom. There's probably going to be a lot of blood/vamp shit in it, but if you can push-nudge towards lesser violent stuff, it might stick. Add that to your paired up drawing thing.
"everyone! I'm drawing names for pairing up for doodle/draw time. This time you have to see/feel/smell the thing you draw. Here's 5 things to pick. Brand new cookies, the zoo, library, your pet, a box of crayons. 5 min each, swap."

And of course, if you have asshole paired with kid, keep an eye on them. But encourage the interaction.

Issue-Reaction-Response. Someone throws a rock at you. You want to yell STOP IT GODDAMMIT. Response is ?

Can you find the weakest/least bullying person in the group? See if she can offer something they would like. Pair people up, and have one say their favorite animal/place/food/stuff. Other person sketches. Reverse. If she's that good at art, the admiration of others would help self esteem. Put pics up all over.
Pair students up (randomly) on subjects - see if those 2 people can work on a science/math problem together.

Don't SHOULD ON YOURSELF. "I shoulda done that. I shoulda told them to stop". No. (this is a counseling deep one, might need to send her off to pro on this) "I didn't tell them to stop because...."

Shield up - but shoulders up too. "They can taunt me. Yeah. They suck. I don't have to respond ^^^ to them, my ignore shield is working. My shoulders are up. Fuck 'em, I'm showing confidence"

this does depend on the assholes too, quite a bit. This pushes her to be a bit more confident, and if bullies are caught/disciplined for their behavior - You tossed that. Out. You yelled. Out. You are making fun of someone (anyone on anyone) OUT. THIS BEHAVIOR IS UNACCEPTABLE. YOU DON'T HAVE TO LIKE EACH OTHER, BUT YOU HAVE TO TREAT THEM FAIRLY AND WITH RESPECT. THIS SHIT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. PERIOD.
Any anyone who does? ANYONE? OUT. Bring 'em back in, but in the hall, explain "dude, you threw stuff. Rule is not to. Don't do it again. 2nd time - you get sent to Head's Office. Got it?" And follow through. And if Kid had so much time away from class, and didn't get assignment done? Tough. It's their fault for getting in trouble in the first place.

That puts responsibility on EVERYONE, so THEIR reactions have consequences. Not just her. She sees Asshole Kid sent out, she smiles a little bit knowing - hey, he's an asshole period, it's not all about me.

but hormones are starting to flow. And different levels on everyone. This is going to be herding cats. Joy!

Yeah, I'm mean. Yeah, I'm a bitch. I do the No Bullshit with my 2 year old. He's pretty much stopped the spitting and hitting habit. He gets told "You use inside voice here at dinner/deli place with me" He screams, I give him a warning, he does it again, we go. He fusses and protests, but as soon as we get away, he shuts up and behaves. He sees that I don't tolerate that behavior.

The assholes - same thing.

[Jester]

Any other icky-gory books that are classics/harder than average?

Three words: Edgar Allen Poe.

[Amethyst Hunter]

Know what was even uglier? Being made the captain and being forced to pick kids who did not want to be on my team. I still remember a kid screaming, "come on, come on, just pick your friends!!"

I didn't have any.

The way I got through this was simple: I went with the suggested opinions of the few (and popular) people who could tolerate forced association with me.

One broken nose later, everything changed forever. From then on no one would bother me, and I actually became popular.

Of course that won't work today. Today, with all of the silly zero tolerance policies, I'm sure I'd have been expelled or even arrested by the police for standing up for myself.

Totally worth it, IMO. At least, the expelling part, anyway.

My father told me I needed to punch the guys picking on me square in the face. Since I was deathly afraid of REALLY getting my ass kicked, I never did this.

One of my eternal lifelong regrets is that I never physically went apeshit on my tormentors. For the same reason - and also because I was afraid of getting in trouble for standing up for myself, from my family and school assministrators, several of whom made it clear that they didn't give a shit that *I* was the victim and hadn't done anything to deserve what I got.

I remember this one blonde bitch - those of us unlucky enough to make her acquaintance called her Miss Smellyburger, a bastardized version of her real name - jumped on my case twice in separate incidents, no matter that the bullying episode took place less than two feet away from her stupid ass. Both times I (verbally) lashed out at the tormentor; both times this bitch was quick to pounce on me for my naughty naughty language and threaten to write me up, but did nothing - even flat-out dismissed the incidents - to punish the bullies.

Needless to say there was no place for her on my Xmas card list. I was glad when she moved on to someplace else.

Conversely, one of the most AWESOME teachers I have ever known was a pro at kicking bully ass. I remember his name (first and last) without hesitation. Sadly, he was only around for one year before (probably) getting another (and most likely better) offer at another school district. (Can't say I blame him, honestly.)

(Side note: Ever notice how it is that the really cool teachers are the ones who don't last barely a year, but the loser shithead ones are always the ones that hang around for 30+ years? I had a sophomore English teacher like that. Total douchebag. I remember his name too, the fucker. Tenure needs to go only to the good teachers, and fuck the ones who do shit like tell your mother face to face that you don't care if a student is getting harassed in your class, or even that said student passes or fails your class (as the aforementioned turdsplatter did with my mom once at a parent/teacher conference. I, who had always done well in English, was somehow flunking that particular class and wound up having to go to summer school - another hell - to make up for it. Turns out I wasn't alone; this guy was universally despised. The ONLY way to pass his class was either to kiss his ass so often your lips got chapped, or do a ton of extra-credit work to make up for what you'd failed.)

But I remember there were a couple of times where Awesome Teacher backed me up, even during one incident where I and my little brother were getting harassed on the bus (school buses are the chariots of hell, trufax), I told this little piece of shit to fuckin' knock it off (in that exact phrasing) even though he was the one PHYSICALLY harassing my brother (punching him), and guess who gets written up by the bully-enabling idiot of a driver. This guy (the cool teacher, that is) knew of the kind of crap I was getting, and he knew I wasn't a troublemaker. He dismissed the write-up I got, AND cracked down on the bullies. (Not that it ever really stopped them, because bullies just don't stop. But it did earn me a respite from their attentions, for which I was quite thankful - Teacher had a well-deserved reputation as a hard-ass and NOBODY wanted to get on his bad side.)

I wish, oh how I wish, I had at least taken one swing at the bullies. There have been times when I have physically wanted to KILL those people and make them bleed as much on the outside as they made me feel inside. I still feel that way every time I think on it or talk about it. I thought plenty about Columbining my school long before those two shooters ever got out of baby trenchcoat Gap. If I had not been raised according to a certain standard by my folks, I probably would have. (And could - I knew where my dad kept his hunting rifles, right down to the ammunition. Though that was always sensibly kept locked up, so I might not have been able to get that far anyway...)

To this day, when I read of incidents involving bullying, whether it's a politically-motivated attack, or a gang of high-schoolers taunting a loner to his or her (literal) death, it inspires in me a homicidal rage. Be glad I don't have psychic powers - if I did, at least half this planet would be a fucking wasteland. I see all these kids today killing themselves thanks to bullies, and I hurt for them and I wonder how the hell I ever made it through.

Without going into details (unless people want me to, that's up to y'all), my reactions caused each bullying incident to end [I]immediately.

I always love reading stories of assholes getting theirs handed to them. I live vicariously through others.

[Jester]

One of my eternal lifelong regrets is that I never physically went apeshit on my tormentors.

Oh, I did. Twice. As I mentioned. Just never did it the way my father suggested (punching them square in the face), nor did I do it as early as I probably should or could have (such as in grade school). But when I did retaliate, it was swift and brutal. Once in school, once out of school.

Not that it ever really stopped them, because bullies just don't stop.

Not true. Bullies sometimes do stop. Especially if and when met with brutal retaliation. I know this to be true from experience, both personal and observataional.

I always love reading stories of assholes getting theirs handed to them. I live vicariously through others.

I will try to remember to post my retaliatory stories later today. (I don't have time now, as I have to get moving and get to work.)