Being Bullied

 

 

I’ve never been able to accept be bullied.  Even to this day.  I remember grade school 2nd grade when an errant student probably a grade or two ahead of me, would taunt me outside the entrance, even jump on me and ride me like a horse.  I would try to avoid him, but he always continued.  

One day he tried to ride me and my temper over took me and I went into a rage, knocking him down, jumping and pounding him until a couple of student pulled me off him.  He got up and ran.

I remember a day in the Army in Turkey playing pool in the game room.  I was about to shoot when a drunkard grabbed my target ball, and said “what the fuck you gonna do about it?”  I put my cue stick on my shoulder, and he looked at me and said, “wacha gonna do, hit me with you cue stick? Go on, I dare you.”  I put my cue stick on the table and left.  I didn’t want to dirty my nice Pendleton Shirt. 

I changed shirts, and went to the Service Club Fountain, but turned around because I thought he was in there.  So I went to the NCO Club.  I sat at a table with 3 buddies I worked with.  Ordered my beer.  Chatted.  

Then the asshole came to my table and started to taunt me, seeing out the corner of my eye his waving his fist in jest.  Then he sat down next to me and said some thing, but when he poked his finger into my chest. I parried his fist, and gave him a striking blow to the center of his face.  He jumped up, I jumped up swinging a right hand blow to his jaw, his falling down on the floor, and my saying ‘you get up and I’ll kill you’.  He put his head back down on the floor.  My buddy at the table grabbed my arms to restrain me. The Sergeant of Arms came over to my table and shouted for me to leave.

His buddies said that they were going to get even with me.  Somewhere, somehow.

I walked back to my barracks looking at my bloody fist and remembering my dad saying “don’t take shit off no one”.

Sunday there were about a half dozen or so other soldiers who stopped by my room and congratulated me.  They too were intimidated.

Monday morning at the mess hall, having breakfast, the bully came to my table and said “I want to talk to you outside”.  I stood up, waited, then he said, “go on, I’ not gonna hit you from behind”. 

So we stood outside and I said “if you want to continue this fight, come on, but you’ll not win”.  He said he didn’t know what hit him, cause Sunday morn his face was sore, but was drunk at the NCO Club.  I told him what happened, but when he poked me, that was what started.  He said that he was drunk and didn’t remember, but if what I said was true, he said that he owed my an apology.  He shook my hand and from then on, if we approached each other, even across the street, he would wave.

Maybe the bully’s self esteem level is elevated when confronted with a stupidity of the fist confrontation, and was able to take control with an apology to the superior who won. 

I hold esteemed belts in Aikido & Karate, Aikido worked with one incident.  We were invited to daughter and son-in-law’s  cottage.  Early Sunday morning I heard a dog barking.  Looked out the front door and there was a women jogger with a little dog snipping at her heals with the dog’s owner laughing, as he stood on his front lawn in pajama bottoms only.  

I went out side to observe and then his little Whippet attacked me, barking at my heal.  I took off my belt and gave a swipe, the dog whelped and ran home.  

“You motherfucker” the pajama man yelled while charging me — used attackers running force against him, ducked and  used his momentum to flip him way into the air (looked like a deer in the headlights) his landing on his back, and the fight was over - stood my ground!  

Daughter and son-in-law went for a boat ride when I called the Sheriff and asked that I not press charges.

But that was nothing compared to the doozy lately.   

Our new neighbor next door moved in 4 years ago, but before our old neighbor warned us bout something wrong with this lady, new homeowner, because at the closing she never looked anyone in the eye, but always towards the floor.  

Her grim attitude turned into reality.

She moved in with her live-in-boyfriend.  A sign of Low Life in my opinion and turned to be true.  We put up with his broken muffler for 5 months.  When I posted a note on our window his broken muffler at 6:45 AM was annoying, he posted notes on his side door, “if I didn’t feed the rats, they wouldn’t have eaten holes in his muffler”.

From then on, he took their huge garbage bins out for pick up at 6:45 AM and waited until the next day, at 6:45 AM to retrieve them, rattling them so disturbingly loud.

We contacted City Attorney/Prosecutor and he allowed them to take out their bins only on pick-up day but had to bring them back same day.

I took her misdirected Amazon deliveries thrice to her door, his answer the door one time, baby in arms, took the package and thanked me.  

But when our misdirect Amazon delivery went to her house, they kept the delivery.  When confronted, he said that he returned it.  Amazon said there was no record of a return for that ticket number.  It was impossible for him to return our delivery because it happened within one day when we confronted her.  And, Amazon only takes returns at Kohls Dept. Store, and if perchance he gave the misdirected delivery to the Amazon driver, the driver would have put in on our porch.  Bullshit.

One Tuesday morning at 6:45 AM, garbage pick up, he rattled his garbage cans and it pissed me off.  So I hung a sign out on our front porch “Next Door Kept Our Amazon Delivery” (not accusing them of stealing our package, but according to the law they stopped the delivery, took charge of the delivery when they could have just thrown the package on our front porch.)

He went ballistic.  “Mother Fucker”, “God Damn” when he came home from lunch.  I left the sign up for 2 days.  The Asshole was pissed.  The City Attorney in a telephone conversation told me to take the sign down.

They put their security camera on their garage above our 6 foot privacy fence.  I spent the day putting up a leafy blind that I bought from Amazon for $80.00 on the fence to block the camera from viewing our yard.  After he got home from work, he immediately went and put the camera above my blind.

Then the lady moved the camera  and placed her security camera at their bathroom window, facing our bedroom window.  It’s been a battle ever since with 1 false police report against us for our bright light in our window for our flowers interfering with her camera, and our  911 call for her live-in boy friend threatening bodily harm against me for my posting a memo on my memo board 10 feet from our window seen only from her camera.

We filed a Neighborhood Complaint Form with the City Prosecutor .  They even used a picture from my memory board as evidence for his 3 hour tirade. 

The City Prosecutor showed us their photo shopped picture of my memory board, blown up so large that my memo looked like it was posted in our window.  I showed the Prosecutor a picture of our room with the memo board 10 feet from our window, and he looked at it with exclamation “a’ha”.  Also showed him a spread sheet with over 200 line items of dogs barking, and other harassment.

We left our one hour meeting explaining to the prosecutor that all we wanted was this harassment to stop and he smiled and said “I think so”.  Then the 2 yahoos were called into the prosecutors meeting room.  

When we got home, we noticed that the lady packed her bags and left for over a week.  

I wish that I was a ‘fly on the wall’ to hear what the Prosecutor told this two yahoos, because since then things are quiet.  They were clearly in violation of voyeurism/invasion of privacy, and neighbor harassment, which holds not only a money fine, but imprisonment.  We think that he read them the ‘riot act’.

My point is to never let the bully win.  Never give in because the bully enjoys power.

I don’t know if I was Atticus Finch or easy prey.