I wasn’t made fun of (much) as a kid, even by friends and coaches who watched my pitiful attempts to hit a Little League baseball. (I was 0 for five years at the plate.) But now, right here in my own adult house, nasty little bullies poke and poke and poke.
“You’re a gimp, old man,” sing the cane and the walker and the knee brace. “Walk much? Not without us.”
“You’re a sick old man,” shouts the chorus of pill bottles scattered around the bathroom sink.
“Yeah, sick,” echoes the 21-compartment weekly pill box.
“Sometimes you’re even sicker,” laugh the pile of just-in-case pills.
“And you just might go blind,” add the black- and turquoise-topped bottles of daily eye drops.
“You can’t hear,” the hearing aids taunt,
“or see,” the bifocals mock.
“I guess you think we show off your shapely calves,” four pair of ugly, arch-supporting shoes giggle in unison.
“What kind of loser forgets how to breath?” cries the CPAP.
“And you look like Darth Vader’s ugly cousin in bed. Sexy? Not.”
The choir in the office pretends to imitate a helpless me.
“Why is it so dark in here?” whines the lighted keyboard.
“I need more light,” add the two desk lamps, as if it were more cowbell.
“Only really sick people have this many doctor appointments,” chirp the iPhone calendar alerts. “You’re falling apart so fast, you’re falling apart so many ways, you need to see a physical therapist and a head therapist – every sonofabitchin’ week.”
Then every damn one of them circles me, with picks and shovels on their shoulders, whistling like some Disney dwarfs.
“You’re old. You’re sick. You’re very old and sick,” they chant and chant and chant. “And don’t you ever, ever, ever forget it. Hear?”
The Internet is full of advice on dealing with bullies: ignore them, stand up for yourself firmly but calmly, don’t give them the satisfaction of getting under your skin, stay away from them if you can. But I find nothing about handling internal bullies, the ones inside your head, the ones you create for yourself, your own Frankenstein’s monsters.
So I come up with my own strategy: fight fire with fire; fight childish insults with even more infantile chatter.
“You’re sick. I said it first. No take-backs.”
“Old? Yo mama so old ... her last name is ‘osaurus.’ ”
“Cane’s got cooties!”
“You squint, but we keep you around.”
“Nanny nanny boo boo, pill box likes doo-doo.”
Might work.
Long as I don’t catch cane’s cooties.
Post Script 1:
While researching kindergarten put-downs, I somehow traveled down a rabbit hole of Croatian swear words. Those people are wicked!
Should you wish to follow in my mouse clicks, I recommend:
Apologies to anyone who knows Croatian or who takes the time to look up the translation (who would do that?), but what I really want to say to my bullies is, “Jebo ti pas mater.” Truly nasty. But that should shut them up.
Post Script 2:
I also found a web page called “Use yo mama videos to learn English,” linked to dozens of comics’ stand-up acts. Yup. For real. Couldn’t make that up.
That led me to hours of “yo mama so old” jokes like:
“Yo mama so old, she sat next to Jesus in third grade,” and
“Yo mama so old, she stripped at Abraham Lincoln’s bachelor party.”
I’ll stop there.
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