[jojapeach]

I watched many a fight, but I never instigated. I escaped a fight when some folks made up some crap to tell the toughest chick in 4th grade, Tamara. That chesty girl looked like a 7th grader. I'm glad I got out of that one. If a girl is the first person to ask you, "You wanna scrap?", she might whup your azz.

But I'm not innocent. I was picked on a lot because I was "pleasantly plump" and smart. Easy target. I had to defend myself plenty of times. The most memorable one was against Stacey in Mrs. Silliman's 6th grade social studies class. Stacey and I had problems the year before, and I never understood why since we were supposed to be friends. (I think his skinny self was jealous that I had more meat on my bones than he ever would.) So, we're doing an arts and crafts project involving tie-dye, thread, and (safe) needles. For some reason, Stacey is convinced that I stole "his" needle. I tried to reason with him that it wasn't his, and that fool took it upon himself to haul off and hit me dead in the eye. I don't quite recall grabbing my eye, crying, or asking "WHYYYYYY?" I do know that I moved too quick for Mrs. Silliman, and I proceeded to slam those skin and bones over and over into the wall. I punched him in a bunch of places, but my parents still wonder why I didn't hit back in the eye. I don't know either, but a lot of folks never looked at me the same after that. (But I didn't become "Iron Mike" or anything...)

The one time that I got myself tore out the frame was in 4th grade against a transfer named Kristi. We had a party in the classroom, and I spilled punch on her leather Keds. I was wiping the punch off the floor, and the heffa got rude and demanded that I clean off her sneakers. I saw nothing, plus I wasn't going out like that. So I got some attitude back and said, "Do it yourself, you so bad." Fast forward 40 minutes, and Kristi has a group of folks behind me and my lil bro who was in Kindergarten. She got 3 cousins with her including a big 7th grade girl. Yeah, Kristi laid into me, but it wasn't right that that big girl socked me in the stomach. I actually threw up all over myself, but some got on her, too. I still give props to my lil bro for swinging his bag and hitting the big girl on her back. He broke his big, hard, construction orange Tupperware lunch box protecting me. (But this is the same lil bro who got into a street fight in the main intersection of the subdivision with another kid while they were both in Kindergarten; what does that tell you?) That was the only fight I completely lost.

* Was that last fight a precursor to Dave Chappelle's "When Keepin' It Real Goes Wrong"? *