Women gets her revenge after decades. 'My junior high school bully ended up massaging my butt.' AITA?
"My junior high school bully ended up massaging my butt."
So I 55F was having issues with my sciatic nerve and made an appt for a massage. My usual therapist was on vacation so I had someone new. Let’s call her Sarah, which is a pretty common name.
She was great and did a great job. No complaints about her skill. But I couldn’t shake the feeling I knew her. She looked familiar but I couldn’t place her. We did the usual question thing.
Do you live around her, where did you go to school, etc and didn’t come up with a common denominator, because we only went back as far as high school. I should also explain that she didn’t recognize me, nor my name.
When I was in school, I went by my nickname, and as an adult I was using my full married name. So, instead of “Dee Jones”, I was “Diane Smith” so there was no way for her to recognize my name.
When I was in Jr high, there were two girls who were best friends and absolute bullies to me for some reason. Let’s call them Sarah and Donna. I’d get shoved, hit, punched, and worse, and more than once, had books knocked out of my arms. Teachers never did anything and my years at the school were miserable. Fortunately, we ended up at different high schools.
Back to my massage. When the massage was over, I got dressed and went to pay. That’s when I saw the receipt with her last name on it. Sarah Brown and it all fell into place.
Sarah came out to check on me and hand me a bottle of water and told me to soak in the tub with Epson salts. I wasn’t going to say anything. It was such a long time ago but I couldn’t help myself.
She had traumatized me. So, I said. “So Sarah. I just saw your last name in the receipt and realized where I know you from. When you and Donna were terrorizing me in ABC Junior High, did it ever cross your mind that you would one day me massaging my ass??”
Then I told her, “you would have known me as Dee Jones back then. Give my love to Donna”. And walked out leaving her with a stunned look on her face. I know it was petty but I couldn’t help myself and I tell the story to everyone LOL.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
I got to evict my high school bully when I managed apartments. Of course I was grinning the whole time.
My junior high bullies; one ended up marrying my brother and the other one is one of the biggest fans of my art and has bought paintings from me. Brother ended up divorcing his wife because she was kind of crazy. You just never know how people will turn out.
"You just never know how people will turn out." Yeah that's why OP's story doesn't hit for me like. 40 years later are they even the same person. If you ask me there's a ten to twenty year "revenge range" where if you get them, fair. Anything after that is like...just let it go. Unless it's something drastic like them blowing up your family or something.
Lawlesslady63 (OP)
I agree. It wasn’t a huge revenge or anything. Kids bully and get bullied. It was just a silly comment I couldn’t resist after trying to figure out why I knew her.
For all of us who were bullied..thank you! This was perfect.
The real question is...did you give her a tip?
Lawlesslady63 (OP)
Yeah, I did. I had already paid when I saw the receipt but I would have anyway. She did a good job and we were just stupid kids back then. I wouldn’t mess with her livelihood.
I grew up one of the few kids of color in my school and was bullied by quite a few older students. I was an average sized kid, but had a 7 inch growth spurt after high school. When I went to grab a drink years after high school one of the worst bullies came up to me at the bar and was trying to figure out why I looked familiar.
I asked him if it would help for me to stick my head in the toilet and beg for mercy. His eyes got bigger at that comment, then bulged out of his head like a cartoon as I slowly stood up and towered over him.
He said he would pick up my trash that night if I promised not to throw him in the lake like he deserved. Glad to see that he realized he did some harm, fear can make you see things about yourself.
I had the pleasure of giving a thumbs down to someone who bullied me and was looking for a job in a very nice actuarial firm I was established with. She was a total and complete b-word to me in middle school, prank-calling my house, terrorizing me every chance she had in school. She and her POS friend made my 6th and 7th grade school years a living hell.
When the hiring manager - who was the BIL to my bestie - was out to dinner with us shortly after she applied and had an interview, he asked me casually, not knowing my history: "So, cilantroduction, what do you think of ____________?" (My bestie knew the story, and was grinning.) I said, "Well, she bullied me in middle school and made my life a living hell.
I don't think I would be too comfortable with her working here with me. Aside from that, bullies are usually sociopathic cowards. Do we really want that face on the company?" She DID NOT get hired. When she initially came in for the interview, she saw me on site and lost a lot of the color in her face. I played it cool and was friendly and professional. Karma, it is a b-word, no?
This is awesome, but kids to awful things. Good chance she would have apologized to you now if you would have given her the chance. I saw one of my old bullies at a bar once that didn't recognize me. When I told him about our childhood, he looked very sheepish and gave me an incredibly sincere apology.
He told me about what was going on in his homelife and expressed how dumb he was as a child and that he had actually felt terrible about how he acted. Bought me a shot and a beer, and we've been friends ever since. Bullies suck but children learn and grow and develop empathy as adults sometimes!
Lawlesslady63 (OP)
Yeah, I thought of that afterward and thought maybe I should have given her the chance , but in the moment, it didn’t occur to me :(