Day 6: My first encounter with a bully

The first bully I knew? Myself!! I was a really mean kid in elementary school. I distinctly remember at least three times I got in trouble for bullying other kids:

1. I pulled the chair right out from underneath a kid who was working on an art project. He had done nothing wrong to me. He was just dorky so I wanted to make fun of him. He fell FLAT on his ass and everyone in the class was laughing hysterically.

2. A group of "mean girls" and I got kept inside during recess for a whole month by the school social worker to participate in some group activities designed to teach us about the evils of gossiping. We played that game Telephone in which one girl starts by whispering a sentence to the girl next to her, and by the time it gets through 10 girls, it's a totally different sentence. For example, "The leaves are in the trees," could be, "Australia has kangaroos and wallabies." OK not that drastic, but you get the point.

3. My mom and dad got summoned to a meeting in the principal's office to address my penchant for pinching my peer's butts. Pretty bad boundaries, right?! My parents were mortified because I learned it from seeing my dad do it to my mom all the time.

Why was I such a mean kid? I think back on this a lot because I'm so ashamed to admit I did those things. My best hypothesis is that I was trying to compensate for a pretty mortifying medical problem I was experiencing at the same time -- chronic urinary tract infections, which contributed to me peeing my pants in public at least 3 times that I can remember in elementary school. Excuses aside, I still feel horrible for my behavior, and I hope I never caused long-term emotional or social damage to anyone. Maybe my career choice was a subconscious way to counteract all the bad things I did when I was younger.