My Best Response

You know how during the day something will happen, and you won't know what to say? Then at night when you're laying in bed thinking about what happened earlier you'll come up with something absolutely brilliant that you should have said? There is only one time in my life that I can think of when I said the absolute best response that could possibly have been said. To this day if I think of the situation I am proud of what came out of my mouth. It was in ninth grade.

A girl named Kat had just punched me in the face. She'd done it in such a way that one of my teeth got chipped. She was walking behind me, and a whole crowd of kids were walking behind her. Kat pushed me really hard, I turned around, and she punched me. There was a brick column very close to my head and I remember trying to make sure I didn't bang into it. A security guard saw Kat punch me, and less than two seconds after her fist left my face he was pulling us apart and dragging us into the main office in our high school.

We were eventually brought into the Assistant Principal's office and told to sit in front of his desk. He picked up the phone to call our parents.

While he was dialing, Kat asked me if I was okay. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME is what I was thinking in that moment. But being in front of the AP and all, I couldn't exactly say that. What posessed her to ask is beyond me. Maybe she thought it would help her not get suspended. Maybe she was curious as to how much damage she'd done for when she bragged to her friends who'd missed the punch. I don't know. So I settled for turning to her with a "are you fucking kidding me" look written all over my face, and asking "Do you really care?" She thought for a second, then shrugged and said no. In that moment, in a weird way, I actually respected her a tiny bit for admitting that.

Kat wound up being suspended. Because I hadn't punched back, I wasn't suspended. When I got home and told my mother my side of what'd happened, she gave me shit for not thanking Kat for asking if I was okay. My mother is very into niceties and manners and "killing them with kindness" and ignoring people who are mean. My mother's advice never helped me. So I looked at her and said "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?"

*Years later I worked in the foreclosure department of a law firm, and my coworkers foreclosed and ultimately sold her house on the steps of the courthouse. I never told anyone at work I knew her.