When I was in eighth grade, there was a girl who rode my bus named Shelly. Shelly made it her mission in life to methodically torture everyone on the bus by singling them out one at a time and then meticulously listing each and every one of their faults. She was kind of like the Simon Cowell of Gilbert Unified School District, except that on American Idol people actually sign up for that kind of torture—nobody chooses to ride the bus. Ever.
Shelly’s preferred method of torture was as follows: once she had singled out her victim du jour she would plop down on the seat in front of them, spin around (in retrospect I’m sure that her entire body spun around, but at the time it seemed like it was only her head), and then proceed to verbally flay her victim alive.
Her delivery was merciless, and her vision all-seeing: I remember that one time she picked a girl that had been a good friend of mine for years; almost immediately she pointed out a small bump on this girl’s left eyelid. Now, like I said, this was a girl I had known for a long time: I had spent nights at her house, jumped on her trampoline, swam in her pool—and I had never once noticed this little flaw. Shelly, however, had picked up on it instantly, as she would, through the course of the year, eventually pick up on every single microscopic flaw each one of us possessed.
For nearly my entire eighth grade year I dreaded the moment when she would turn her Evil Eye my way (no one knew how she picked her next victim: was it where you sat? What you wore? Or was it simply alphabetical?). And then, one inevitable day, it happened: Shelly parked herself in the seat in front of me and began. Her dissection (or rather, vivisection) of me was just as painful as I had feared: I think she even managed to notice a zit I had on the inside of my ear. But then, mercifully, it was all over. The bus arrived at school. We all got off. And the next day it was somebody else’s turn. I would never have to endure another such attack ever again.
Or at least, that’s what I thought. Then I had children.
Today my daughter is in the eighth grade, and while I used to be afraid that one day she would have to deal with her own, personal “Shelly,” it turns out that all my worrying was misplaced: what I should have been afraid of was her turning into a “Shelly” herself. Because, actually, that’s what has happened.
Don’t get me wrong: she’s not a bully towards other people. Who knows, maybe she would like to be, but the fact is that while she does ride a bus, it’s the city bus, which is filled with people who are on their way to work (and grumpy about it), and those people would likely squash an impertinent little critic like a bug. So instead, she has turned all of her attention to me.
“Why do you buy this kind of milk,” she says.
“Why don’t we live in a better house?”
“Why do have to constantly call me and ask me where I am and what I’m doing? Don’t you have any friends of your own?”
And all of a sudden, there I am, right back on the bus. And there is a zit on the inside of my ear.
My only comfort is the knowledge that, eventually, even Shelly grew out of it. In fact, at our twenty year reunion she was very cordial to all of us. And we were cordial back. Once we’d snuck outside and let the air out of her tires, that is.