September 15, 2004~~7:54 p.m.
Asshole kid, you're so gonna wish you'd made better choices.

All the way to work this morning, "all the way" being, of course, about eleven minutes, I recounted the events of last night. How the fight started. What he said. What I said. What we both meant. I thought, considered, pondered, and began to compose what felt, at the time, like the most significant entry I'd have written in a long time.

I knew exactly the path things would take when I got home from work today, the same one they always have when we fight.

But then when I got home tonight all of that thought was immediately tabled.

There'd been an "incident" we needed to discuss. It was the tone in his voice, the way he used that word, that gave it all away. One of the kids had done something seriously bad.

It seems that Shoe has been on the receiving end of some bullying for quite some time. He thought the best way to handle it was to ignore the [my words] stupid ass of a kid so that he'd get bored with the whole thing and leave him alone.

But that didn't happen because Shoe is a pretty emotional kid; it's easy to push his buttons. He's the kind of kid that makes a very satisfying victim. So today, asshole kid wouldn't give up. He wasn't content to mock Shoe's glasses or call him names, he chose to thrust insults upon the rest of our family as well. (Apparently, asshole kid called me "the *B* word". Yea, big news, asshole kid.)

And Shoe broke.

He took out his bottle of water and dumped it in the direction of asshole kid, getting asshole kid wet. Asshole kid made a physical threat akin to "if you do that again I'm gonna hurt you". It seems unclear whether more water was splashed at that point or not, but the next thing Shoe (and the witnesses present) remember is that asshole kid grabbed Shoe by the arm, ripped his glasses off his face and threw them on the ground, then pushed Shoe down on the sidewalk.

I don't know if Shoe would even have told us it had happened had it not been husband's early day allowing him to be witness to the aftermath as the other kids dispersed.

So, in the instinctive ways of motherhood, I'm pretty much ready to kill asshole kid, but given my reasonable, adult, perspective, I am willing, instead, to get his rotten little ass in as much trouble as possible.

Y'know, I can be pretty shy and quiet, easily intimidated, not much of a risk-taker, but if it comes down to some eleven year old asshole kid and ME, he's gonna lose.

You thought you were big shit because you could cuss a blue streak? You thought you could build yourself up by putting others down? You thought you went home "the winner"?

You messed with the wrong bitch's kid, stupid.

~Alice