So on Friday, a girl that Justin (all unbeknowst to me) sits with on the bus every day had finally been teased one too many teases for sitting with a boy on the bus. (She already gets teased constantly for that immortal sin of being about a year ahead of everyone else her age in physical development.)

Thus, to avoid some of the punishment, she decided not to sit with Justin.

Now, Justin gets teased about this seating situation as well. To hear him tell it, the best thing in the world would be if they sat apart and the teasing stopped.

At least that was his take on it until it happened. When it did, I imagine that he suddenly realized what it was like to be on the receiving end of rejection.

Then he called her a bitch.

Go ahead and close your eyes and shake your head and be astonished and flabbergasted and pissed and disappointed (especially if you know my generally polite and friendly kid). I’ve both been there and done that, and I’ll wait for you to catch up.

I found out about this on Friday afternoon when I got home from work and the girl’s mom pulled into the driveway behind me to chat (having just gotten the story from her daughter). We had a good talk out by the garage.

(Justin should, incidentally, thank his lucky stars that I was the one she talked with. It could have been Jackie, who was inside the whole time and unaware we had a visitor.)

I went inside, we all had a long talk (a talk we’d never had before because it didn’t seem necessary. Ahh young love). We discussed the actual meaning of the word bitch. He was properly mortified.

Then he and I did the man’s job and went to the girl’s house so he could apologize properly. With witnesses. His mother and I talked some more and decided that words were fine and good, but if he delivered an apology bouquet of grocery-store flowers to the girl on the bus on Monday (where he first insulted her), that would be just swell. (I’m a big believer in acts of contrition.)

Justin hated the idea, so I figure it’s probably the perfect thing to do. I walked him to the bus to make sure nothing untoward happened to the floral bundle before he got aboard. They’re nice. Purple, I think.

The stupid thing is, they get along great. Great. I’ve rarely seen two kids get along that well at that age. Once the apology part was over, they talked for a few minutes and you can just see how easy and comfortable they are during a time of life when you are almost never easy and comfortable. So it’s a shame (and I mean a Shame) that it had to be complicated with hurt feelings and all that garbage.

I hope it works out well. The girl seems nice, her (widow) mom is great and strong and has a wicked sense for eloquent punishments, and the little brother is hiLARious.

Justin apologized to the girl’s mom as well before he got back in the truck. Smart kid.

The new rule in the house is that we will treat any words ill-spoken to a lady as though he had said them to Jackie.

Most amusing aspect to the whole sitch: Doyce coming over to the house to game on Friday night, and telling the story three times (as folks arrived), each time prefacing it with, "Well, I'm going to blog about it, but ..."

FWIW, another good example of how you're raising the kid right.

Dude, you are doing a wonderful job with that boy. Thanks from all the people who might someday have to interact with him. :)

I called my dad a bastard once.

It was something I'd heard on the playground, and he had just beaned me, hard, with a snowball in the face at 10 paces. As I was walking out of the house, oblivious to the ambush.

Mother told me what it meant, and that dad was particularly sore on that meaning.

I still don't get it. His dad died of a heart attack when he was 16. By 16 years old, I couldn't give a flying frog for any abuse my peers might lob me, I ignored it all.

You can't convince me they managed to irrovacably damage him with one word at that age.

At 9 or 10, yeah. Everything means what it means then, and its all heavy.

And back then, we were always the meanest to our friends. It was how you let them know...

Humans are wierd.

Color me wrong, but I still think my dad owes me the apology.

When I was sixteen, I said something to the effect of "yeah, that probably makes me a real son-of-a-bitch, but..."

That was as far as I got. I was walking behind Dad at the time, you see, and that was when I found out that You Don't Speak Ill of Your Mother, even by inference. (That's what we talked about after I got up off the ground, that is. :)

It wasn't a father-son lesson. It was a man-to-man lesson (both on respect for my mom and (unintentionally) on defending a lady's honor), maybe one of the first such lessons I had on that footing with my Dad.

I have never forgotten it, though it took me probably 8 more years to grow into it.

As a word, 'honor' is a punchline most of the time these days, and it was even way back then (15 years ago), but that's what that lesson was about. I hope that's some of what Justin gets out of this weekend.

He's told me that he's going to get teased even more about giving a girl flowers than he did about sitting with her. I told him that sometimes a man (and we had a talk about the difference between a 'guy' and a 'man') has to be willing to take a little heat so that a lady doesn't have to.

It sounds corny to say it, but there it is.

And Ray's going to be getting some hard lessons about how one treats a gentleman, to be sure. Doyce, have I told you and Jackie lately that you have my sincere admiration on the way you guys are raising Justin? No?

I look up to you guys, and as Ray grows up, I'll keep how you've handled things with Justin in mind.

Good for you to have the guy/man talk as well. Wish more people understood the difference.

The flowers is a great "punishment" as well. Best thing is that he'll be able to look back and say that he was a cool kat even then. He'll appreciate the lessons soon enough.

Two things about the flowers:

The girl didn't ride the bus this morning, so he REALLY bit the bullet and gave them to her at school while everyone was waiting to go in. WAY more people around than there would have been on the bus.

I was at the school over lunch hour and saw the girl in question. Actually, she saw me and exclaimed, "Hello, Justin's Da- Unc- Mr. Testerman!" *bright wave* -- she was walking on cloud 9.5.

Yet another reason why I read this blog. My son is 6 and will be getting to those years before I know it. It's good to see how a person in a comparable situation and of a comparable temperament handles these situations.

-much admiration-
-kudos-