this is a sort of storytime with a dash of bullying and a whole lot of me not even realizing what was going on, so just a warning
This was like several years ago now, but I was just thinking about this as I was going through my morning routine. (also, I linked three songs that popped into my head as I was typing this)
I was hanging out with two of my friends at the time, who we shall call Skye and Gwen because idk if they’re okay with me actually naming them.
We sat down in this pavilion at a separate table, totally minding our own business. We were playing music, but it was pretty quiet, or so I thought.
I forgot to mention Gwen and I were like 12 at the time and Skye was 13, so when we sat down near a gathering of 17 year olds, I expected them to, y’know, act like decent human beings.
Instead, they started calling us emos and yelled at us to turn the music down. (To be fair, it was The Ghost of You by My Chemical Romance, but y’know.)
Thinking about how I hate when other people are blasting their music (even though it wasn’t blasting), I turned it down regardless so that only I could hear it. I wanted my friends to be able to hear it as well, but apparently that wasn’t enough.
Skye also was on the side of the internet that made those really cool dragon puppets, and she had been teaching me how to make them while we were sitting at the table. And of course, the teenager congregation started yelling “FURRY!” at her. I am, obviously, a proud furry, but Skye definitely wasn’t, and she got PISSED. I was merely irked because I didn’t process that they were actively bullying us. Skye didn’t do anything yet, but she complained to Gwen and I, and she grumbled that she wasn’t a furry, and we continued chilling.
Then, the real issues started when they started THROWING (empty) SODA CANS AND (half-full) WATER BOTTLES at us. I was irritated, but I still didn’t process that they were bullying us. In my head, I was still like “wow these are cool older teenagers. so much aura.” And just kinda ignoring what they were doing and laughing it off. And when they started throwing cans and bottles, I grabbed a can and threw it back at them. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough for them to know I was annoyed. But then one of them yelled, “YOU MISSED!” and then the three of us were all like “let’s just leave. let’s just go. sitting here isn’t worth it anymore.”
So we left, and we sat on a bench nearby.
Then Skye’s mom came by because apparently there was some drama going on. She didn’t know about what happened with us, but she was talking about Skye’s younger brother, who we shall call Aaron. Apparently Aaron was “threatening some 10 year olds with a knife” although, uhm, not exactly but basically.
Skye’s mom called up the 10 year olds like witnesses in court and was like “what happened exactly?” in her angry mom voice.
The 10 year olds said that some other people were beating up Aaron with sticks, so he ran away and got out his pocket knife. He never used it, and he never threatened to use it, but he did hold it menacingly as he was walking around.
So Skye’s mom took her and Aaron back to their dad’s booth.
Oh yeah, this was at some festival our town was having, and Skye’s dad had a booth, and my mom and sister had a food truck there that I helped out with. Gwen was just there to hang out. So that’s what we did. I gave Gwen a weird plot-heavy short story I wrote about some random numbers. Like “What happened after 7 ate 9?” I think is what it was called. Anyway, Gwen read it, and by that point it was like 2pm, so she went home and I went back to my family’s food truck.
Then there was some drama with “nobody can park in the parking area next to the building the festival was at because it’s a fire lane” (even though the road would be close enough) and a bunch of vendors had parked there already because it was close to where their booths/trailers were set up. Including my mom.
So, one of the event coordinators was like “hey, I think your car is being towed. I just thought I’d warn y’all.” and my sister sprinted over to our car and drove off just as they were hooking it up to the tow truck.
And there was this really cool couple who had a food truck that sold Cuban food and they helped us advocate for ourselves and our fellow vendors in the whole debacle.
Anyway, everything ended up working out alright. But yeah, I just had to get that out of my head and into the world.
