Hazing

I had been quite unpopular, bullied and teased in school all the way through the first bit of junior high. Ever since the second half of junior high and on through high school I had been by and large shown deference and I was much more likely to be the teaser than the tease-e. I thought my place in the high school hierarchy was set but that was because I only ran in limited debate and student government circles. When I entered the world of sport and the manly sport of wrestling I was once again just a dude who got no special privileges and was subject to hazing. We didn't have a systematized hazing ritual on the wrestling team it was more like some guys were just dicks. One kid in particular, a junior when I was a senior was always doing crappy little things to irritate and annoy. In his own mind I think he fancied himself a clever practical joker. Like almost all practical jokers before and since he regarded his stumbling, retarded comic babies as nothing short of genius while everyone else was just inconvenienced and annoyed. He would steal peoples clothes and throw them in the showers or try and push people outside the locker room naked. He had the comic subtlety of Lenny from 'Of Mice and Men' and he was honestly disappointed when someone got really mad when all he wanted was to make a funny. He had done a couple little things that I let slide for the most part but one day at a tournament I was very tired while I was waiting for my turn to wrestle again and so I laid down on the bleachers to take a nap and as I did he saw the opportunity for some epic douchebaggery. He took a lighter and melted a hole in my sweatpants while I was still wearing them and peacefully unaware as I slumbered. He thought that was some pretty good stuff and was laughing with his jerk friends when I finally woke up to smell the burnt polyester. I took a few groggy seconds to understand what he had done and when I did I quickly labeled him an A-hole. He was offended at my language and got really defensive puffing up like a blow-fish and posturing so all and sundry knew he was not the kind of man who would take a slight to his honor sitting down. He was a row or so up from me on the bleachers and was trying to mad dog me into submission when he stepped closer to me. As a consequence of his elevated position that made us line up with my head to his belly even though we were about the same size. I didn't like having his genitals so close to my person and so I pushed him backwards from the hips and the awkward footing of the bleachers made him fall into a head onto the seats. In the brief time of this exchange our assistant coach had seen there was some problem starting and came to break us up. The crotch melter kid actually had the nerve to claim that I was trying start a fight for no reason. I showed off my newly melted pants and the evidence was a little overwhelming in favor of provocation vs. random act of violence. I was told not to fight and the other kid was made to run around the building and apologize. He was not happy about that and tried, below the level of punishable offense to irritate me for the rest of the trip. I was to busy stressing out over how much I sucked and loosing to worry too much about him anymore though.