All right. I could not resist a cathartic vent, especially when being invited - no, encouraged to - participate. You wanna know what I hate?

Do you really wanna know?

First and foremost, I hate assholes. Hey, being original wasn't one of the rules in this quest, right? Anyway, I hate people who have a general disrespect for those around them (Dennis Leary did a whole song about them), people who move about their lives and don't care about what effect what they do or say will have on the people around them. People who piss all over the public toilet seats (as Leary pointed out), people like this guy I almost ran into a few years ago who cut me off entering the roadway and sped into the nearby convenient store and parked right in a handicapped spot. (I had originally written about this guy in a node called "Asshole in its worst form" or something but it was almost immediately eaten.)

But I don't want to go on and on about assholes in general. The real focus of this Hatequest write up is my hatred, my absolute detesting of bullies and bullying. Back in school, grade school and middle, I was a little odd, a little different. I daydreamed a lot, walked a little strangely (some said effeminately), and had a different outlook on life than most given the fact that I am a creative person and we all tend to be a little on the strange side. Anyway, a number of classmates took exception to this and decided that it'd be a hoot to make my school life hell. One of their favorite things was to endlessly call me a "faggot." They get low points for originality, especially after Year Five of that. (You'd think at some point they would get a bit more creative with their taunting?) I guess it is representative of the rampant homophobia in schools, especially with the adolescents. You know it's bad when they're using that insult with somebody who is not even gay!

There was one in particular that I hate. That I loathe with every fiber of my being -- still, to this day. If murder was legal I would eviscerate him, strangle him with his own intestines......and then maybe set him on fire. This guy was a cruel, sadistic bastard who found much delight in the pain of others. I would seriously love to be there the day that somebody ends his pathetic life hopefully in a very gruesome way. He never wasted any opportunity to put me down, trip me, kick me, hit me, or any other type of quick abuse so he didn't get caught doing it. And this was nearly on a daily basis. And he did it to others. He was a fucking punk that I think I'd like to bash his head repeatedly into a concrete column until I saw brains. Just so you know, there is not anther human being on the planet I'd like to do that to.

To that guy, and all other kids/people out there like that: FUCK YOU , and I hope that you meet an untimely and spectacularly fatal end you low-life pieces of shit.

The desire to keep me from getting into trouble (I was a good lad) and the fact that I don't do well with confrontation kept me from going psycho on him. I did try to impart some advice from my fist on him once on the bus, but for some reason I didn't make a very good fist and he dodged and... well, all I did was put a pretty good scratch on his face. The bus driver, this stupid old woman, starting doing assigned seating one day and I just knew... knew ... that because she was such a fucking bitch that she'd put him and I in the same seat before it happened. I was ready. I told myself that if he touched me I would open up a can of whoopass on him. Well, he tapped me on the shoulder or something and that's when I scratched him.

This segues into something else I hate. I hate it that, with rare exception, every single one of the school teachers, bus drivers, and administrators, seemingly could give a shit less about the bullying going on. Bullying was rarely discouraged. In fact, it was almost encouraged. Incessant teasing, cruel mental torture, and the occasional physical jab goes unpunished - or barely punished - but if you retaliate, watch out, you're in trouble, Mister! You're treated no differently when you're in the principal's office. I hate all the teachers out there that I had and that others have had that don't care if their students are subjected to a daily dose of torture. Fuck you. Turn in your teaching licenses and go work for the US military over in the Middle East if you like to watch people being tortured.

I loathe the "boys will be boys" attitude, that sick notion that it's perfectly OK, that it is just a part of school, we all have to go through it. Is it really such a badge of honor? Does it really make us who we are? If I was not picked on and tortured in school would I really not be the great person I am now? Not to inflict some sci-fi philosophy on you, but if I were to go back into time and prevent much or all of that shit from happening to me somehow, would it really have a shitty butterfly effect on my life? I don't think so.

Let me tell you what I have because of all of that. Searing, white hot hate, that's what. Whoo hoo. Yeah, that's wonderful that I have that inside of me, isn't it? A deeply-buried murderous rage. Thanks, guys!

Any teacher or school administrator that sees bullying going on and doesn't do anything about it should be FIRED. PERIOD.

I still lie awake at night occasionally, not able to get to sleep because something gets my mind on the subject and I think back to school... and fantasize about taking a baseball bat after softball on P.E. and going postal, bashing the brains out of any and all the students who did me wrong, especially the asshole I was referring to earlier. God that would have been great. If I was only 11 or 12 I probably would have only done some time in juvey, right?

Well I hope you've enjoyed this inspiring, uplifting Hatequest entry. Now let's all have tea and cakes and play in the sun!