The Bully Rules

Golden Sprinkles from Golden Boy

Bully season is here.  Here's how it works.  First, pee on the folks you don't like.  If they don't like it, sue them.  If they get up and move, carpet bomb 'em.

You need a bully to stand up for you when you've had your dignity, power and voice stripped by another bully named 'Circumstances'.   Right?

Is it true? There was never a time for me, up until age 18, when some mean, thin skinned bully didn't rule my life.  I mean, that's how the people around me offloaded their pain.  Life was simple.  Old-fashioned might makes right.    Black and white.  Villains and victims.  Me and the people out to get me.   Winners and losers.  'Fair' was something pictured on Saturday Evening Post covers but really rendered on shoot 'm up TV.   When my brother was upset, he'd chase me and wrestle me to the ground.  He'd twist my arm behind my back and grind his elbow into my ribs.  Or he'd wave a knife in front of me.  I should stop egging him on, our mother said.  My big sister looked so far down her nose at me that she confused me for either being nobody or Flossie the cow. My nervous wreck of a mother oozed either stale cigarette and alcohol breath, or contempt for the kids and husband who'd failed her.  

No doubt I would have bullied a younger sibling, but we ran out of siblings. So I survived by dreaming of a time when I'd be famous, and all the bullies would apologize to me.  I'll bet some of yesterday's voters feel Donald will deliver what the bullies have coming.  An apology from them may be the least of it.

I really didn't see it coming, that the bully to top all bullies would be elected president.  Only Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong-un remain, to prove that they are really the world's top bully.  Am I forgetting someone?

I volunteered yesterday, giving rides to democratic voters, so they could support the presidential candidate who was merely careless, cagey, and greedy, and not a bully.

Everyone at the Democratic headquarters was excited she would be our next president.   By 10:30 p.m. I had slunk to bed, afraid to wake up.   Hoping for a miracle.

Now thanks to 279 electoral votes, every parent will have to explain to their children why their president is vulgar, mean and thin skinned.  If only Donald was just a fencepost...