This will come to no surprise to people who actually know me, but when I was a juvenile Spud I was a bully. A high-caliber, A+ dickhead. I was in a split class that was about one-third fifth graders and the rest fourth graders. I was one of the elite fifth graders. I remember the first day of school that year; I was sitting in my class with all of my friends that I had been in class with since I still had trouble pulling up my pants by myself.

Suddenly, an announcement came over the intercom: “Would the following students please collect their belongings and report to the office…” Nine of us got up and went, dutifully gathering our freshly sharpened pencils and uncolored-with Crayolas. A few kids in my group were quite nervous. Personally, I was very accustomed to being called to the office- relaxed, even- but these other kids? They were the nerds, the grinds, that kids who were very quiet in class and drew pictures of castles or were reading Dickens at the age of ten. There must be some mistake, I thought.

When we got to the office the principal was waiting for us by his secretary’s desk.

“Welcome back to school, kids,” He smiled broadly at all of us, possibly to calm the nerds down, some of whom were beginning to twitch a little. “This year, we’re going to try a little experiment. And you get to be the first ones to test out our New Program.” He waited for the impact of this marvelous news to sink in. “You have been chosen, out of all the other fifth graders, to be in an accelerated class. This means you will have more responsibility and freedom than the other fifth graders.”

Oh dear. I didn’t like the sound of this. Did my Mom know what was going on here? Would I be allowed to place a phone call? He led us down the hall…to the fourth grade wing. We all exchanged worried glances. Finally, I spoke up.

“Mr. Griffiths,” I blurted. “Did we get held back?” He stopped our procession and turned to look at me.

“No, Asshole, this isn’t a punishment. This is a reward. But you will be having recess with the K through fourths.” If that wasn’t a punishment, I don’t know what was. We were supposed to be with the older kids! How unfair!

Finally, he marched us into our class room where about twenty fourth graders sat, frowning at us. We were put on our side of the class, next to the too-hot radiators and our “reward” began. Since we were stuck in the “little-kid lunch” (as we called it), we didn’t have much of a chance to socialize with kids of our caste. When we saw them before and after school, they whispered and pointed at us. We always stood together, in a tight sullen clump of stigmatized nerdiness. None of the other kids ever seemed to believe that we were in an accelerated class; the prevailing rumor was that we had been forced to repeat the fourth grade.

We were all bitter about this arranged isolation and acted out in various ways. I was just on the cusp of puberty and had begun to notice boys. The only two boys in our tiny fifth grade class were bonafide freaks. So that left the fourth grade boys- and a few of them were very cute. My friend and I were torn because in grade school obtaining a boyfriend beneath your grade was on par with interspecies dating in the real world- it just isn’t done. So we had crushes that we couldn’t act on, and in proper little-boy fashion the boys behaved as if we were lepers.

What else could we do but begin to bully them? We had dangerous levels of hormones that had just begun to kick around, so we had to keep interacting with them somehow… My first thought was that I would grab them and try to kiss them, but they were always too fast for me. This almost-grabbing led to accidental scratching, which led to intentional scratching. Both my friend and I had really strong nails that grew quickly. As the boys would whiz past us we would lash out at them, occasionally making contact with an arm or hand. Sometimes we even drew blood. I’m sure they didn’t like it, but they never really tried to get completely away from us. For some unknown reason, they also never narced us out- I guess that was a macho little boy thing.

Before we got bored with the game and moved on to something else, I remember sitting at home watching MTV (circa Adam Curry) while sharpening my nails to lethal points with a nail file.

Later I got mine (every bully does). And even later after that, in high school I began sticking up for the runty little freshmen geeks. They began to revere me as their evil and unpredictable protectress who would get in the face of black footballers twice her size and growl, “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size, you meathead corndog dickface.” The footballers were always so stunned that the little nerds had time to get away, and the bullies were so taken aback they would just shake their heads and mutter something about not wanting to hit a girl.

That was bullshit. They just knew I could take ’em.