A Punch In The Nose

Last night, we were eating delicious pizza at our friend Kitty’s house when Diana offhandedly mentioned Elijah’s bully was back at it. This time, Eli was reading a story about fairies in the library and said bully announced to the world that Eli was a girl because only girls are physically able to read stories about fairies.

She said Eli didn’t seem to mind and was pretty ok with it. 

I was not pretty ok with it.

Later that night, as I was tucking Eli into bed I said, “Hey. Next time (name redacted) makes fun of you, you have my permission to punch him in the nose.”

“But. I’ll get in trouble. I’ll get a yellow slip.”

“I don’t care. Tell your teacher I said you can punch (name redacted) in the nose.”

“What if I just trip him? I don’t want to punch anyone in the nose.”

“No. It has to be a punch in the nose. Tripping will just make him mad.”

“But. Mom says (name redacted) is really just sad because he has trouble at home. And he wants other kids to be sad so he’ll feel better. And I should feel sorry for him.”

“Oh yeah. That’s good. Next time he does something to you, say, ‘I feel sorry for you.’ But do it in a way that you look like you don’t feel sorry for him.”

“But isn’t that mean?”

“Yeah, that is kind of dark. Let’s go back to the punching.”

“No. I’m not going to punch him. I’m just going to say ‘Whatever’ when he makes fun of me and ignore him.”

I stood up and realized just how much better of a person my son is than me. I then went downstairs and played an online video game where I get to punch people in the face.