A Man's Softer Side...

In 8th grade, I happened to live next to a bully. Like a typical bully, this kid (who was in my class) picked on someone smaller and more vulnerable than he was... he chose this tiny 5th grader who happened to have an unfortunate streak of super geekiness in him. For example, 5th grader would feel that it was necessary to let you know that he was "grounding himself," because he got an A-. I felt and still feel that that was a bit extreme.

My sister, the bully and his best friend (nice guy actually), the bullied 5th grader, and I all lived in the same neighborhood. We basically lived in a suburban world of cul-de-sacs where there was only one way in with 5 minutes or so of circling to realize there was only that same way out. We were always seeing people lost and confused - amusing at times, I admit.

Anyway, the bullying would have started on the bus ride back from school, except for the fact that the 5th grader was safe with my sister and me. The bully would never harass him too much with us there on the bus, but he would immediately lay in as soon as we got off the bus. (What's interesting is that I'm sure that the bullying was a result of the bully not being super popular and because he was on the smaller side of boys in our class. His friend, however, was a rather tall kid, and was constantly asking the bully to just leave the kid alone.)

As soon as we would get off the bus, the bully would start harassing the poor kid. The poor little boy realized that he would have to run home, if he was going to spare himself a lot of aggravation. Out of the confines of a small bus, my sister and I did not have too much effect in protecting the poor kid. All we could say was to leave him alone and to knock it off. However, the one thing we could do was get off of the bus really slowly. We'd let the poor bullied kid get off of the bus in front of us, we'd yell for him to run, and then we'd take our sweet time getting off the bus. Fortunately, this plan worked quite well and saved him from a good amount of harassment.

Now... the point of this story was not actually about the bullied kid, but it was about the bully and his best friend. I kid you not when I say that one day, while my sister and I were walking behind these two kids, we heard the craziest thing! Now, they have been talking to us, I don't remember, especially as it wasn't like we were enemies. I think we all just picked our role and did what we had to in the bullying thing, and didn't think to much about it from there... of course, I think there was definitely more animosity between the bully and the bullied.

Anyhow, we heard them talking about watching "Days of Our Lives" and baking a chocolate cake! What?!? I couldn't imagine a boy bully doing this with his best friend - it struck me as bizarre then, and it still does when I think about it. I wonder if any of my friends now remember me telling them about this experience. Honestly, my sister and I had to make fun of them at that point - how could we not? He was the bully (and annoying on top of it!) Poor bully though... he messed around with the wrong kid at school and had like 10 boys beat him up for it. I must say my heart went out to him that time, although as I recall he did have it coming to him, but I don't remember what he did....

So what just took me back over to an experience of over 10 years ago? Cooks' Illustrated. I just had a 20 min+ experience with Rob and Jon perusing and reading various articles. We chose the lemon bars for me to make next. They will be for dessert for when Jon makes us his blue fish with avocado that he told us about. He said it isgood, so I can't wait to try it! (Is anything with avocado bad??)

Anyway, I love that publication, which is why I've decided to make as much as I can from it. (We had their oatmeal cookies as dessert after dinner - pecans, chocolate, and cranberries... yum!) However, as much as I love it and respect it, I couldn't help but have a bit of a case of giggles (which I kept to myself!), as I watched the two of them going through the 4-5 issues that I own. It was cute... and it brought me back to these two best friends walking down the street talking about "Days of Our Lives" and baking chocolate cakes, even if one was a bully. It makes you think; boys definitely have a softer side... why do they go to such lengths to hide it??