Where to Sit

When I was in elementary school, I was a victim, the girl that was always picked on. I was not the lowest in my grade in terms of status, but the second lowest, and I am ashamed to say that I exhibited no empathy at all, and picked on the girl who occupied the lowest rung.

Amazingly, 4th and 5th grade girls will go to incredible lengths to ostracize an individual, to make another person feel rotten. There were parties to which I was specifically NOT invited, play dates that failed to materialize, friends that somehow always had other plans, even though I knew they had made plans with me. There was no specific reason for this – I didn’t pick my nose and eat it, I bathed regularly, could make a joke that was moderately funny. It was almost just the luck of the draw.

The lowest on the ladder did pick her nose, she didn’t bathe regularly, and she didn’t have a winsome personality. But I still shouldn’t have picked on her. In fact, at the time, it was a relief to have someone lower than me, as my own lack of status probably met the needs of all the moderately-close-to-the-bottoms or even middle-of–the-ladders. Rather than actually finding me abhorrent, my elementary school colleagues probably kept me there because it gave them an elevated sense of their own rank.

Rank has its privileges, I have been told, but I will NEVER be a bully in order to achieve it. I will never tell someone about a party to which they have not been invited; I will not fail to call if I cannot make it to an appointment. I will not stab someone in the back for personal gain. And so, I perch happily near the bottom rung, but not actually on the ladder at all, professionally unsuccessful, but personally satisfied. And Linda, I'm sorry I was a jerk.