Fights: Finish Him!

Where to start? First, let me say I am a redhead, sometimes called ginger, often called grumpy. It's frustrating that any grumpiness or anger I might show is attributed to the color of my hair; rather than the fact I might have a legitimate reason for being upset. People make jokes about my not having a soul so I stare at them intently and tell them to continue speaking and soon they will not have one either.

Any way the point is that when I was a child I was shy and quiet but I did indeed have an awe-inspiring temper. It was not easily set off but some things triggered it instantaneously. I have only been in a handful of fights my whole life and most of them were with boys. This is the first fight I was ever involved in.

When I was probably about 7 years old I was wandering around the neighborhood by myself, minding my own business, poking at sticks, and random debris trying to find something to do. I heard someone start shouting things at me. When I looked it was a boy about my own age.

I pretty much ignored him and continued poking through the debri looking for something interesting. Keep in mind I had never met this boy before. He started making fun of me, my clothing, my hair, and what I was doing. So I stopped poking around and went to say something to him. I approached calmly and told him he needed to stop being mean to me because I didn't do anything to him.

For some unknown reason when I was telling him to stop he started to hit me with a stick that I had previously not noticed. Being the type of person I was at the time I blocked his strikes with my arms and was probably just going to leave and go home. I was never the confrontational type, actually I was kind of a wimp. But the boy starts insulting my mother and my sisters. How he knew I even had sisters is beyond me. Unfortunately for him, this has always been something that sent me over the edge into full on rage. From any perspective it's kind of like my version of hulking out. I'm sitting there one second talking to you and trying to get you to stop whatever it is and the next there is a very angry redhead in your face (which I have been informed is very terrifying indeed).

Growing several feet and my hair going all DBZ is probably an exaggeration.

I then snatched that stick out of his hands and proceeded to beat him with it until he was curled up in a ball pleading with me to stop.

In that moment I realized what I was doing and was faced with a moral dilemma. In a matter of seconds I realized I was not behaving any better than he, I had caused another human pain (that wasn't related to me), he was now lying on the ground crying, and finally it dawned that I might get in trouble. At the last realization I dropped the stick and hauled ass home as quickly as my little legs would carry me.

When I made it home I pretended nothing had happened and hoped that nothing would come of my suprising momentary rage. A few minutes passed and I was beginning to relax when there was a knock at the door.

I cautiously peered around the corner and stared at the front door. My parents opened the door and there stood an old man and the smug face of that terrible little boy. 

As you can imagine my parents were pretty angry and they told the old man they would discipline me accordingly. When the two left my parents turned to talk to me about it. They were legitimately confused because it was not in my nature to just beat someone with a stick for no reason. So I told them what had happened. I didn't get in any trouble at all. They told me I had better never start a fight, but I should always be the one to finish it.

This is how I learned it's okay to beat people up as long as they aren't related to me and they start the fight.
(Rule not applicable to siblings especially).