Bitten While Defending a Friend/Transcript


 * Rebecca Parham: Hello, my geeks and peeps, my explainers and entertainers, my little oo-de-lollies, Rebecca Parham here! Throughout my young life, I've had a handful of noteworthy people who habitually seek out to harm or intimidate those whom they perceive as vulnerable. Oh, sorry, YouTube now demonetizes the b-word and I don't mean Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice! At my preparatory school, pretty much most of my classmates didn't like me and picked on me from time to time, but a few of them made it a more regular thing. One such individual was a girl that will call Milly: she was a troubled, young soul, little on the mad side, had difficulty understanding why people got upset when she punched them.
 * Milly: "Come on, we were just having fun!"
 * Rebecca Parham: To be fair, I wasn't her only target: she was an equal opportunity irritant. She tormented girls, boys, big kids, small kids, kids that climb on rocks, everyone! And she did everything from cheap insults to stealing to physical violence. When you're young, adults tell you to stand up to kids like her, defend the innocent, be a hero, do the right thing! What they don't tell you is that sometimes, doing the right thing still gets you in trouble. Milly, I know you're probably out there growing up in a better person, but I'm using you as an example. On with the show, it was sixth grade when Milly and I had our little incident. That year we had gotten a brand-new kid we'll call Greg. Greg was a troubled soul too: he had a very poor family life, all of the kids in the class were relentlessly picked on him and he often retaliated not with his words, but his fists. He hated everyone and everyone hated him, well except me. Seeing how he was a fellow social outcast, I couldn't bring myself to be mean to him, and in turn, he was never mean to me: you could even say we were friendly, for a while. Now at this tiny school, we didn't have a cafeteria: we all ate in the gym, so one lunchtime, Greg and I were sitting on the bleachers eating and talking. Now, when Greg wasn't pummeling the kids who made fun of him. He kept a journal, probably should have been his first choice for emotional expression, but hey, I'm no psychologist. And this day, he had his journal, sitting out next to him on the bleachers. As we talked, Millie came over: you remember her she stood there chatting with us until she spied Greg's journal.
 * Milly: "Oh what's this??"
 * Greg: "Don't touch it! It's my journal!"
 * Milly: "A journal? Come on! Let's see it!"
 * Rebecca Parham: In a flash, Milly snatched the book out of his hands and ran off with it. Greg gave chase into a keep him, Milly ran into the girls' locker room. By the time I caught up with the two, Greg was standing just outside the locker room, Milly was standing just inside with the door open and she was reading from his journal out loud to the other girls inside, knowing full well he couldn't go in to stop her, and remember, Greg was a troubled kid: there might have been some really heavy stuff in that journal that she was about to spill everywhere. I saw all of this unfolding in front of me and I knew I had to do something, this was not right. Time to stand up as the adults say! So I ran into the locker room and began tussling with Milly for the journal, no one was getting hurt, mind you, just a lot of pulling and shuffling, but tug-of-war quickly escalated into war (give you three guesses who took it too far). We struggled for about 10 seconds before it happened: the next thing I knew, she grabbed my wrist and bent down as hard as she could, I screamed full voice and let go of the journal when she finally let go of me. I looked down at my wrist to see a perfectly gruesome bite in my skin and it was pretty gnarly, looking to the serrated intentions. It was already starting to bruise and it was slobbery. Thankfully, she didn't break the skin because listen: human bites are nothing to sneeze at: do a Google search, Mayo Clinic says to seek emergency care if the skin is broken. Apparently, we all have Komodo dragon mouths full of dangerous bacteria. Actually that kind of makes you rethink kissing. "You, you bit me! You actually bit me!! What the hell is wrong with you?! You're insane!! I'm going to the nurse!". Suddenly, Milly wasn't so concerned about Greg in his journal anymore, I marched right to the nurse's office with Milly behind me trying to convince me not to go. When I showed the nurse the bite, she disinfected it and called the principal. We both got sent to his office, I told him my story, but when it was Millie's turn to tell hers, she actually had the gall to say:
 * Milly: "When she put her arm across my back, I couldn't breathe! She was about to suffocate me, so you see, I had no choice but to bite her!"
 * Rebecca Parham: "Objection, your honor! That's not how the human body works!". No, I didn't say that I didn't say anything in that moment because it wasn't my turn to talk, and honestly, I was getting a little freaked out because the principal was acting like I was just as guilty as Milly. I don't know if he honestly believed her lies, but he listened to our stories and said
 * Principal: "Well, because both of you a horse playing in the bathroom, you're both in trouble."
 * Rebecca Parham: "Horseplay?"
 * Principal: "I'll be calling your parents today, Rebecca. You'll be getting five demerits, and Milly, normally, I'd give you five as well, but because this is the second time I've seen you in my office this year you will be getting ten."
 * Rebecca Parham I have several objections!!! Let's get this straight, my crime, my punishable offense, was getting bitten while defending another kid and the person who bit me would have gotten the exact same punishment as me if it hadn't been her second offense?! Excuse me, who hurt you?! Yeah, sure, maybe I could have politely asked the little sadist for the journal back like she'd actually give it back, but I don't care who you are, there's a very big difference between tug-of-war its stolen property back and a full-blown bite that could have potentially ended in a hospital trip!!! [in a fancier form] Lord help us, Becca's angry! [in a normal form] Even as outrageous as it all was, I was beside myself. All I could think about in that moment was that I was in trouble, I was supposed to be the good kid, the Peacekeeper, the clean record... five demerits and he's calling my parents: they only do that for the bad kids! Am I a bad kid now? Oh, mom and dad are gonna be so mad at me... He sent us back to class, and for the rest of the day, I was a nervous wreck, dreading the sound of that final bell. For sure, the principal had called mom and the moment, I set foot in her car, I was a goner. Well, the end of the day, came and I solemnly walked to my mom's car, it felt like I was walking to my own execution. I got in and silently awaited my fate:
 * Mama Parham: "Hey, sweetie we're gonna be here a little bit longer, we're waiting on your sister to get a basketball practice."
 * Rebecca Parham: "That-that's it, no screaming? No lecture? No punishment?" She's not even gonna bring it up? I was a tad confused.. wait a minute: she didn't get a call from the principal, she doesn't know what happened? Well that's not right she needs to know, or I got this bite on my arm for nothing? Look what Millie did to me!"
 * Mama Parham: "Oh hell no!" [violently knocks on the principal's office's door] "Explain yourself, knave!!"
 * Rebecca Parham: We were in that principal's office for a good half hour and mom calmly explained over and over and over again the absurdity of it all how backwards it is to punish a child for essentially being assaulted especially while defending another child. And here I was, terrified that she was gonna be mad at me. By the end of it, she couldn't convince the principal to remove the five demerits, but it almost didn't matter anymore, I had done what's right: I stood up for what I believed in and the people that mattered. It may come with consequences, but doing good is its own reward and after that day, Millie backed off and rarely bothered me or Greg ever again. Just goes to show what can come from one act of bravery. Hey, oo-de-lallies, Editor Becca, here again, I hope you're all doing okay during this strange time but I wanted to show you what the Creator Ink have been working on: I'm really excited about this! We have a new Witch of the Woods themed collection out available for pre-order, we're also bringing back the geek is strong with this one t-shirt. Well, all of these items will be available for two weeks to pre-order, and if you really like all three of the Witch of the Woods items, you can get them in a nifty little bundle and save some money. I'll leave a link to the shop in the description below, please promise me that you will stay safe and stay home, explainers, thank you so much for tuning in but now, I must tune out. Bye!
 * [Music]