Damn. This made me cry. First of all, I love the muppet lunch box. It is the sadest thing when a child is so proud of something, especially something their parents gave them, and other kids make fun of it. I wish I could beat up all the kids who made you feel so bad. I mean, I don't remember you getting picked on. All the boys liked you and thought you were so pretty. I was always jealous of you but I didn't get picked on. I think people were afraid to pick on me because I was popular and I would threaten to hit them. The boys always grabbed me and said gross stuff, but no one ever said mean things. Why didn't you tell me? I beat up people for Linds. I could have done it for you too. I'll do it now...give me some names.

oh, and I still make the mourning dove sound...i'll do it next time I see you.

Man. I so lived right there with you. I used to feel like my face was getting so red it was glowing and so hot it would spontaneously combust. I hated how I could leave the house feeling happy, pretty and self confident, but in a moment I was instantly dejected because of something somebody said through a mean-spirited sneer.
I wish there was some fool-proof way to totally protect my kids from ever feeling that way without cloistering them away forever.

makes me think of lord of the flies. kids can really be such monsters.

the only thing that would make me sadder then one of my kids falling victim to one of these little snots would be one of my kids becoming on of these little snots.

In second grade, I got new glasses that looked like my Dad's (they were plastic, brown, and probably the same size as my dad's), and a new haircut that consisted of long hair in the back (with an extra long rat tail curling down out of the mullet), railroad tracks on the sides, and spiky on top.

Plus, I had this leather jacket that, on the back, I had written the phrase, "Warning: Nerd Detector in Use" in orange marker sharpee. I had seen it on a button.

Finally, every pair of pants I owned were too short and I always wore the socks with the double colored stripes across the top.

Needless to say, I got made fun of on the bus, too. :)

wow, dick ronkulus. Jeez, poor kid.honestly...i can't even...yeah, just...WOW.

that nerd detector must have been beeping nonSTOP.

you know. . .I had bathroom problems one day in 2 grade and let's just say that my underwear needed some. . . cleaning as a result of it. . . and while I was administering the needed washing in the bathroom stall STUPID JUSTIN BURROUGHS CLIMBED UP THE OUTSIDE OF THE STALL AND PEEKED IN AND SAW ME and my soiled underwear and FREAKING TOLD EVERYONE IN MY CLASS.

I was devastated.

JASON! MAN! I made that joke but erased it because I didn't want to be one of the mean kids. Darnit. How were you doing the cleaning in the stall? With toilet paper? That doesn't seem very effective.

man, Darby's post almost had me in tears of sadness, but then the comments had me unsuccessfully trying to stifle loud bursts of laughter (the people at my work probably think that I am manic).

all of you commenters are so funny. way to become cool, all of you. i was really lucky to have two older sisters who were really cool by the time I was a kid in school. So, even if it meant that my sisters were the people making fun of me, it kept me from being made fun of by my peers at school. The wounds from a friend are better than the kisses of an enemy (or in this case, the wounds of an enemy). Darby and Merry, remember when you made fun of my pointy black shoes and called them "wicked boots?" I got so mad I started crying. And Merry, you made fun of those pink saddle oxford shoes that I had and called them "Ronald McDonald shoes" by the time we were already on the way to school, so the whole entire day I wanted those shoes to rot into the ground and disappear. But, Merry, you also punched Wesley Spicer in the face after he smacked me in the face. That was good of you. So, even though I had my fair share of teasing, it was usually only by the people who loved me the most, and in the end, it saved me from being mocked by just plain mean kids.

and the ultimate irony is that you ended up marrying the meanest of all mean kids, linds.

Linds, I called them wicked boots because mom told me to be nice to you and I had just told you guys that Tina Warrington annoyed me because she called everything she thought was cool, wicked. so, it was me doing what mom said. I was being nice to you, sort of.

Its amazing what damage children can do. I think many people have experiences at mistreatment seared into their memory.
It took me 10 years to overcome statements that took 5 seconds to say.

And merry you better give me some of that crack--AKA morning dove sounds. That has to be one of my favorite sounds in the world.

yeah, jase, it's like a traffic jam when i'm already late. a no smoking sign, if you will, on my cigarette break.

Linds, that is probably one of the funniest things you ever said...."if you will, on my cigarette break." HA!

the most ironic thing about that song is that nothing in that song is actually ironic. annoying, yes, ironic, no.

isn't that ironic, don't you think? ah yeah I really do think.

Jase, you totally missed my whole point. You made that comment to me about that song before, so I thought I was demonstrating irony on two accounts: 1) I wrote something that meant the opposite of its literal meaning, and 2) I was trying to state that marrying Collin was only as ironic as Alanis Morisette's "ironic" situations, which translates to not being ironic at all. Come on, Mensa.

I got it, linds. I got it.

we all got it.

I love it when the comments run away from the post and take on an identity of their own and evolve into something that almost completely makes the reader forget about the original post. Sigh. That's what I love about weblogs.

me too.

but back to that post. wow, great writing. darby you do such an excellent job of evoking a time and a place and an emotional moment. We ALL knew exactly what you were talking about because you weren't telling us about it, we were there.

Kids who are mean to The Darbs suck. I mean, come on, it's Darby. How messed up can you be to be mean to what is so good?

Don't you wish you could go back in time and say to all those kids "You're all a bunch of idiots! Don't you recognize what's in front of you?" And to say to Little Darby "Hold on, little girl. You won't always be surrounded by punks and morons."

Oh, and I'd probably tell her to save some milk money and buy Microsoft stock with it...

when we were last at the beach ollie tried to play with some kids and one of the little brats told him he wasn't cool. He stop up with indignation and declared "I am VERY cool, hmpf" and stomped off back towards us.

good for him, because he is very cool and those kids were wrong.

too bad that he had a bunch of snot with sand particles stuck in it running out of his nose and down his face at the time. . . but still at least he knows that people who don't think he's cool are the ones that have something wrong with them.

See, Ollie gets it. You can have snot and sand particles and realize that you are cool. He is cool, super cool, and so is the rest of our fam. Some people just have enough confidence to declare that they are cool in front of the ones who say they aren't...even with snot and sand particles. You go little dude.

new post, please.

I tried the dried-snot-on-the-face-calling-yourself-cool thing last week at band practice. It didn't work out so well.

Ollie is probably one of the coolest kids that I know. But... I don't really know that many kids...

yeah, the snot has to be wet and dripping, ala Ollie style. dried just doesn't cut it.