Tags
dot-heads, fun with stereotypes, ignorance--it's what we do, Indians, Native Americans, racism, scalphunters, Tardsie's True-Ass Tales
By Tardsie
To Get Your Head Around This Story, It Might Be Helpful To Picture Tardsie With Not Just Arms And Legs, But A Big Fat Mouth As Well.
It’s bad to be a racist, but it’s worse to be a bad racist.
When I was a kid, I was an obnoxious little snot, whose quick mouth earned me many a well-deserved ass-kicking. One time, in fifth grade, I was picking on an Indian kid (dot-head, not scalphunter). Being a racially insensitive lad (a trait which, as the previous parenthetical notations so ably demonstrate, I’ve thankfully outgrown) I decided to go ethnic.
As Difficult As It May Be For You To Believe, There Was A Time When We Were Really Insensitive.
You may wonder, Gentle Readers, whether I would have been more inclined to be sensitive had not the boy, whom we’ll call ‘Indian Kid’ (not his real name), and his younger brother, ‘Indian Kid’s Little Brother’, been the only Indian kids in school. I leave that matter for our readership to determine.
Actually, They Looked Nothing Like This.
Already brave and courteous, I created a perfect storm of honor by displaying my ignorance not only of other cultures, but more damningly, of the proper slurs by which to insult them. The best I could come up with for Indian Kid was “Ah-So!” like the stereotypical Hollywood ‘Chinaman’ of the thirties and forties. And of course, I went ‘Full Celestial,’ bucking out my teeth, squinting my eyes, and topping it off with a little clasp-handed bow.
Yeah, That's Pretty Much It Right There.
Indian Kid actually put up with about a half-day of my horse-shit–‘Ah-Sos’ in the lunch line and on the playground, solemn bows from across the room during class–before he’d finally had enough, and decided to tell somebody during the long, after-lunch recess. But apparently, Indian Kid had misunderstood me–he told the playground monitor that I had called him an asshole.
You'd Think I Could At Least Have Come Up With This, But I Was Drawing A Blank.
When the playground monitor, Lady Who Spent Her Childhood In A Japanese Internment Camp During WWII (not her real name), asked me if I’d called Indian Kid an asshole, I told her, “Yes. Yes, that’s just what I called him.”
I Learned A Valuable Lesson, But Just What Exactly Is Open To Debate.
Promethean Times 
I’m beginning to understand why you had to pick your lips out of your braces…
For sure! In Junior High alone I was suspended for three smart-assery-related fights, in which I compiled a respectable 2-1 record. Guess which one necessitated the lip-picking?
Well, it’s good to see you’re no longer a smart-ass at least. 😉
You got kicked in the balls a lot as a child, didn’t you?
Surprisingly, and fortunately for my many, many lady friends who reside in the Niagara Falls area, I never took a direct hit to the ‘nads while not wearing a cup. Not for lack of trying, however–I did get a really bad Charlie-horse on my inner-thigh from a near-miss.
And as you might suspect, I’ve been punched in the face many times, although fortunately, not in several years.
Tardsie sperm available for all!
The look in the eyes of the kid on the left (not his real name) tells me he’s in line to administer yet one more well deserved ‘Tardsie Ass Kicking’.
I lost all fear of authority when I was ten, and got a punishment I refused to accept. So rather than face the music, when nobody was looking I grabbed my bag and walked out of the school in the direction of home – no idea what I was going to say to my mother, either. Luckily for me my kind neighbour was driving by and picked me up, brought me for ice-cream and dropped me home later, laughing at my irascibility: my mother was so shocked she didn’t say anything. My sisters (who had dutifully not left school grounds) said that everyone in the school was looking for me, and the headmaster went purple in the face. Next day I took my mother’s handwritten note of apology to the headmaster who had seemed a fearful devil prior to this, (he had a reputation for picking messers up by the collar and shaking them) and I swear it was like he had shrunk a foot. This was a guy who had made a vast percentage of the kids in that school urinate in their pants at one stage or another. He called me a few names half-heartedly, that was about it. That’s when I learned that people are often only in authority if you let them be. Nice to hear tales from a fellow rebel 🙂
Thanks, C&S–I enjoy hearing stories about petty-power jerkwads getting their comeuppance. I’m not terribly surprised to hear that you were an incorrigible girl. As you’re no doubt aware, it has been scientifically proven that all Irish lasses are wicked. Every tart-tongued, hard-drinkin’, fight-startin’ one of ’em.
It’s like you see inside my head…