I've run into WAY TOO MANY EPs over the years, figured I'd start with this story.
EM: Entitled Mom
EK: Entitled Kid
S: Entitled Kid's sister in choir
Me: not sure tbh
A little backstory/context:
I've done martial arts throughout my childhood and do competitive boxing in college, I'm pretty good and managed to get pretty far in a tournament last fall, so it's safe to say that I can defend myself and will do so regardless of who is threatening me. This story happened during high school, when I was 16 and still really skinny. I didn't look like how strong I was, so a lot of people made the same mistake that EM did. Along with that, I played cello in high school, got first chair and still play it so, kind of a big deal.
It was a concert night at the high school for band, orchestra, and choir, our auditorium is pretty small, and we usually don't have room to store all of the instruments in the music room (we didn't have enough money for each class to have its own room), so we usually reserved the first two rows for instruments and instrument cases. It's very obvious that no one is allowed to sit there, because of the bright red tape blocking off the rows restricted for students or cases. I placed my cello carefully in its soft case in the front row, center seat, so I could help set up the stage (placing chairs, stands, etc.) and didn't really think anything would happen; besides, who would want to sit by a bunch of cases for two hours? No one, right?
WRONG.
About 30 minutes before the performance began, the house opened, and some of the parents of other students who had arrived early found seats toward the front, sat down with their programs, talked to other parents, yadda yadda, but among them walked EM, a Karen of Karens, and her spawn of 9-10 years, EK. I'm putting rock stops (the circular rubber discs that keep the cello end pins from slipping) in front of the first few rows of cellist chairs when I glance over and see EM and EK looking at the front rows of seats with all of our stuff on them.
Me, as politely as I can: Miss, you can't sit there, those are for instrument cases.
EM ignored me or just didn't hear me, so this time I went to the edge of the stage where I'm at most 20 feet away from her.
Me: Miss, the red tape is--
EM turns to me sharply and snaps: I know what it's for, god!
EK cuts me a glare and is following his mom back and forth, until the kid points to the chair in the middle: mom, if we sit here, we can get the best view of S, right?
Me: Seriously, you can't--
EM: You're right, let's just move these out of the way.
For a minute I'm just
Flabbergasted
Like
There they were, just piling people's cases with stuff IN THEM on top of each other, and then I see EM's hand carelessly grab the top of my cello case by the headstock (the curly part with the tuner pegs).
Me, this time fairly agitated: don't touch that! That's my cello, stop it, can't you see the red tape?!
I let out a whimper of worry and hop off the stage, but by the time I get there, the cello had been thrown to the ground and landed with an even more worrying thud, crack, and dull crunch. The kid had turned around to look at the cello or something, but saw me there instead and jumped because he didn't see me get off the stage. Apparently that was enough to get EM to acknowledge that I was there, and went in full Mama Kare Bear mode because I had scared her kid.
EM: WHY DID YOU HIT MY KID?
Me, flinching a bit because she was at least twice my weight and was a few inches taller than me at the time: I didn't hit your kid, you just threw my cello and you can't sit-
EM: YOU DON'T GET TO TELL ME WHERE I CAN AND CANNOT SIT, YOU'RE JUST A KID AND A BULLY WITH NO RESPECT FOR ADULTS NOW GET OUT OF MY FACE AND APOLOGIZE TO MY SON!
Me, literally shrinking into myself: I didn't hit your kid, I didn't mean to scare him I'm just trying to tell you that the red tape--
Now, for whatEVER fucking reason, EK starts fake crying and clings to EM: He hit me mom! He hit me and it huuuuuuurts!
EM is now gassed up because she has power over a teenager and her son is crying, some of the other adults are standing up but the bystander effect was strong with this crowd: HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF SOMEONE WENT UP TO YOU AND HIT YOU OVER SOMETHING AS STUPID AS A SEAT? YOUR DUMB VIOLIN PROBABLY WASN'T IN THERE, HOW DARE YOU COME UP TO MY SON AND DO THAT TO HIM, I SHOULD SMACK YOU BECAUSE YOUR MOTHER WOULD IF SHE WAS HERE-
Her tirade just kinda faded out to be honest, I was more worried about my cello than this kid's fake injury, but EM decided to go a step further. Next thing I know she had grabbed me by the arm and started to pull me toward the side of the stage, her nails digging into my arm.
Me: what are you doing? Let go of me!
EM: NOT BEFORE I FIND YOUR TEACHER AND HAVE YOU KICKED OUT FOR HITTING MY SON!
I started to pull back and the mom and I were quickly in a tug o' war over my arm, with her screaming bloody murder as a few parents began to run up to break it up. She won the war and pulled me toward her, I don't know if she was going to slap me or grab me with her other hand, but as soon as I saw the other hand go up, I felt suddenly jittery and butterflies in my chest, next thing I know I had yanked free and saw my fist sitting right in the center of her fat face. She tumbled back and fell on her butt hard after stumbling back like a drunken pig on two legs, holding her face in pain as she started crying, screaming threats and obscenities at me as EK just started crying again. I didn't care about that though, I pushed past the very helpful parents and ran to check on my cello. I opened it up, my heart sinking into my stomach and hot tears swelling in my eyes as the side of the cello on the bottom was crushed and the bridge pushed out of place. It was fixable, but it would cost a lot, and we could not afford it at the time. I simply wiped the tears away even though I kept crying for a solid half hour and bawled again later that night, closed the case again, walked out of the auditorium and called my dad (my parents had been to a billion of these, they were both working that night too so I didn't force them to go to every concert).
He left work and picked me up, he contemplated going in there to give her a piece of his mind, but I told him that I didn't want anymore trouble tonight and just wanted to go home. He saw me crying, something of which I usually never do, and he just said that he'd tell mom and that they'd deal with it later. Needless to say, mom was pissed, but not angry that I had decked EM in the nose.
After a long talk with the principal about using violence to solve my problems, I got suspended.
Kinda happy ending though? S told me after I came back from my suspension that her parents were going to try to press charges, but after my parents wanted to sue them for assaulting a minor and paying for a broken cello, she went away with that nonsense fairly quickly because there were witnesses that could back it up and the school's security cameras would show a grown-ass woman trying to drag and/or strike a scrawny teenager half her size trying to break free of her grasp.
Submitted May 04, 2019 at 08:27AM by TChalllaUdaku http://bit.ly/2IYmYXc
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