Suck This, Berkshire Country Day School!

Note: The post below has been changed to protect the privacy of the middle-school bullies I originally mocked in it. I have now given them all more suitable names, rather than using their real names. Although bullies deserve to be outed (and flogged ruthlessly through the public square), I'm getting tired of deleting the spammy comments that have poured in from some loser with too much time on his hands who clearly didn't like seeing his name here. Hereafter, he shall be called Jujyfruit Assbat. The name of the school, however, I ain't changing. They deserve the sucky press that comes when teachers don't protect kids from being bullied.

The original post with edits is below!

Because of the vagaries of the Facebook universe, I recently came across the name of a fellow classmate from 9th grade, when I attended a special little hellhole called Berkshire Country Day School.

Let me tell you about this school. I arrived as a 14-year-old, having moved from Greece (where my family spent about a year due to my father's work at the time). I was naive, awkward, and completely unaware that I had the smoking-est body of my entire career (which I swathed in chamois and LL Bean couture). I had horses on the brain and often waded around in stables. I sat around at night musing about poetry, and generally wondering why my lot in life was to go to BCD.

There were exactly 9 kids in the 9th grade class; all had been together since kindergarten. Let's just say they were a tight-knit bunch. There was one hose-beast named Baconback Dix, with an emphasis on the DIX (she sort of looked like she might have one, or several). Two trashy chicks named Slutteree Dinglebrack and Angela Iddlethwap, who wore tapered jeans with zippers near the ankle. And a horsey lady named LaLa Lovelace. She was all right, sort of. The males consisted of a lovable, goofy guy named Boofah, a strange and goofy guy named Heehaw, a brace-faced Blue Oyster Cult lover named Lump (who briefly and sadly became my boyfriend), a pretty cool and weird guy named Frog, a redheaded fucknut named Sludge, and one all-star mutherfuckah named Jujyfruit Assbat. The latter is the very same whom I encountered on Facebook. The only person out of that group I might want to say hello to these days is Frog. Like I said, he was a pretty cool guy. I guess I'd give old Boofah and Heehaw and Lump a handshake, too. Maybe I'd nod at LaLa Lovelace.

This school was just a rotten place. It might have been nice for those in "the club," but for outsiders it was very, very bad. The funny thing was, all my siblings had attended this school years back and had loved it. Loved it! They thought the place was the cat's ass. Of course, my sister later revealed that she hadn't liked it very much, really. And I never heard my brothers talk so highly of it, either. So I think my parents were delusional. They specifically went out of their way to send me to this fuckhole. They thought they were doing me a big favor.

My classmates decided I didn't fit in (thank god, in retrospect, because they were grade-A assfaces) and so some of them would make fun of me. And here's the kicker--one of the teachers, whose name was MISS JUICY FATBACK, decided she would laugh right along with them when they made their stupid cracks! Miss Fatback was a big, fat, swollen lump of a woman. She was pretty young; I think she got a kick out of the 9th grade boys liking her. They called her (inexplicably) Miss Taboobstake. And she liked that! One of the ways she got them to like her was by laughing at their inane jokes, even at the expense of a poor lil' 14-year-old girl. Her ass was about the size of Ohio so I think she was a little insecure. I mean, what kind of place is it when teachers join in on the bullying?

Then we had Madame Slap, the French teacher. I took tutoring with her because I was placed in a higher class than I should have been. She was so old, my sister had also had her as a tutor. When you got an accent mark wrong on your French compositions, Madame would reach out and viciously scratch a pen mark on your arm. If you did really badly, your arm would be cross-hatched with ballpoint marks when you left her little studio.

There were probably some decent teachers there--I seem to remember liking the English teacher a good deal, and the science teacher wasn't so bad, either. The art teacher I deem worthless because I have bad memories of being tormented there, too, and the teacher blithely ignoring it. Teachers who don't defend kids deserve a special place in hell. Yes, you, Miss Taboobstake.

BCD was a very bucolic-looking campus, with small buildings dotted around a large expanse. There were cross-country ski trails on the property, and a swimming pond. It felt like I had to take about 8 buses to get there because it was so far from the farm-like homestead where my parents had temporarily set up shop. I think it was a 40-minute journey in all, and every bit of it rotten. The bus ride was like a classic movie in which the cool kids combed their hair and talked about their inane lives, while I sat hunched in my seat with a kid two years younger who decided to be my friend. I think his name was Tate. He was a good kid, all right. It plays very well in the movies, these mismatched friendships. We used to make up puppet shows with a pair of mittens.

Lots of kids at the school played Dungeons and Dragons. In retrospect, the place was lousy with geeks. And also jocks. The athletes were spilling out of the woodwork. Since I'm channeling Holden Caulfield tonight, I'll just say they were a bunch of crumby phonies, the lot of them. Just about every kid there felt entitled, and acted like a prize monkey. The kids would hang around in big groups and pick on other kids who were smaller, or who looked different, or whatever. It was frightful. Jujyfruit Assbat, the rotter whom I encountered via Facebook, would dance after me down the walkways shouting "Ugly! Ugly! Ugly!" This really happened, people. (He's an "actor" now, but I deleted the link to the heinous photo of him with hair as big as a wolverine's pelt. Funny, a friend of mine was casting a movie not so long ago, and who should show up in the stack of resumes but....our friend Jujyfruit Assbat. He was summarily recycled. Oh yeah, Jujyfruit, it's always wise to be nice, because I could have helped you a wee bit in your dumb career. I won't even explain how or it would make you cry in your soup. But I'm not enough of a bully.)

For a long time after the miserable six months I spent there (the latter half of my ninth-grade year) I received solicitations for money from the school. I have never had less inclination to give money to anyone. Although I haven't thought of it much in years, I take a special pleasure now in slagging the joint. Thank you and good night!

My Volunteer Spirit Breaks

My kids just started school, and the amount of tree-felling paperwork is unbelievable. I joined the PTSA so I think I will protest that this is not "green," but I'm sure if it's online only no one reads it in a timely fashion, resulting in missed snacks and unfinished homework assignments. And panic attacks!

The scariest pack of paper I received was the American Greetings fundraiser pack. According to this, I should solicit gift orders from everyone up 'n' down the the block for wrapping paper and other sundries. This would be essential to the life of the school! I was sweating beads over it when my husband arrived and pulled it from my clenched fingers.

"This is for mothers who do not work," he said, and placed it firmly into the recycling bin. I felt much better.

The K homework has begun. Admittedly, it does not involve calculus. But it's one more thing to worry about every evening. "Have you filled out your yellow circle sheet?" I asked older son, who jumped to the task because he's the kind of kid who will always do his homework right-on-time. I check the folder every day. I also have to prepare a nutritious snack every morning and make sure it's in that blasted backpack.

Volunteerism for my middle son's PreK is mandatory, because it's a parent coop. It's pretty cool. Everyone is earthy crunchy and wears Birks or Keens, and when you serve the fruit for snack you have to wear disposable gloves. Plus, no peanuts! No sunflower seeds! No crackers made in a peanut factory! No nothing that has been ever in contact with a nut in its entire lifetime! No meats! No carrot sticks! No chokey-chokey foods! It's all good, dude, but when I cut the apples at home I DID NOT WEAR GLOVES. I hope the kids will be OK. My fingers are dripping with liquid LSD. Gragagh!

My volunteer spirit broke today when, as a Special Events Committee Member for the Larchmont Newcomers Club, I realized I did not have the wherewithal to organize the Manicures and Martinis events I had concocted in my own brain. Why? Well, when I entered a couple of nail establishments and mentioned the idea, the women looked at me like I was a lunatic. I think the language barrier did not help. I begged off. I am under so much stress right now that I am physically vibrating. Organizing an event with martinis is difficult to do when you need 8 martinis just to survive at night. And 8,000 cigarettes.

Grhrhrhrhrhrh. Postpartum depression ain't pretty. What everyone needs in this instance is a husband who will say very sweetly and gently: "That's not for you right now, honey." And place the offending item--whatever it may be--in the recycling bin.

Pelham Housewives Smackdown!

Last night I wrote this letter to the director of my son's school. She's a decent and nice person, so I was decent in turn. I thought, however, that I would edit the letter to illuminate my true and more heartfelt feelings about the subject.

Dear_____,

I appreciate all the changes you've made to make the parking at the school easier and safer--they seem to be doing the trick!

I thought I would bring up one concern, however. I'm not sure what you can do about it, but I see some rude behavior from the moms skinny, nouveau riche beeatches who drive the giant SUVs motherfucking, gas-guzzling, planet-wrecking, gargantuan pieces of shit that take up half the road. As my nanny was pulling out today from a parking spot, she paused to let someone ahead of her pull out. The mother in the SUV behind her leaned on the horn and angrily gestured at her to "get a move on." My nanny was shocked and appalled that another member of the school community this nasty bitch would be this rude. Perhaps a gentle reminder about courtesy public slapdown in the next newsletter school ampitheatre--come on, me and her, mano a mano--would be helpful?

Frankly--and this leads me into another rather difficult topic I have often thought of broaching--the behavior of some of the parents at the school saddens me sickens me and has made the town of Pelham a dark blot on the landscape forevermore. It is, in fact, the reason that we do not plan to send our son back next year, nor will we be sending his younger brother in the future. The school and teachers are wonderful, but many of the mothers are unfriendly, uncommunicative, and seem to belong to an exclusive club that desires no new members total freak-ass beeatches who have never worked an honest day in their lives and have nothing better to do than complain about "the help." Oh yeah, and I'll bet they have ostentatious, tacky gold fixtures in their bathrooms, too. And their husbands are old, bald, and have small penii.

It is a shame that at this point in my life, I should be sharply reminded of junior high-school cliques when this sort of thing has no place in a school community. Sadly, I am not referring to the children but to the mothers loathsome slagmounts to whom I alluded earlier. Last year, I attempted to set up several playdates for my son in order to extend his school friendships, as suggested by his teacher. In every instance but one, the mothers rebuffed me by not returning my calls and making no overtures of their own went back to picking out tacky shit for their oversized, repulsive homes. Eventually, I gave up--to my son's detriment. While he was invited to the birthday parties along with everyone else, only a few mothers even took the time to say hello to me. [Yeah, even the short, squat one with the glasses who has an extra Y chromosome. Yeah, her too. If you're gonna be a beeatch, says my husband, at least be hot. This woman looks like she just popped up from a groundhog hole. And her name is Donna. Yeah, I'll name names! Or maybe it's spelled DAWNA? Or used to be before she was found turning tricks in a Hohokus lesbian strip club. ] The lack of friendliness has been downright bizarre the source of my recent "I'm a-gonna go put human poo on the steps of the craphole Pelham Country Club" fantasies.

While this year it's too early to tell, I don't have high hopes based on last year's experiences. Seeing mothers in tennis skirts stand on the frontsteps and gossip about their nannies no-account trash who were no doubt scooped from the Bronx by some wealthy schmucks with extra money to spend on Botox doesn't make me feel like this is the right community for me makes me want to slap, slap, slap my sillies out--just like the kids' song!

I realize there is little you can do about people's attitudes, but I believe that a school should be a welcoming, loving community from child to staff to parents. This has a huge impact on my perceptions of the school as a whole. I find myself saying to friends who ask: "Yes,it's a lovely school, but the parents just aren't very...nice are complete, human shit. The community is cold. Therefore, I don't recommend it for your child stay the hell away!" Occasionally, I get the response from a fellow local parent that "the school has the reputation of being extremely snobby filled with people better served by being fed to carnivores in a Roman circus." It's unfortunate that this should be the case when my son adores the school and his teachers.

Realistically, I don't want him growing up in a community where he has no outside contact with his friends other than the school hours. Nor do Iwant him to think that such rudeness and unmerited elitism are a good way to behave; I fear that his young school friends, given a few years, will morph into small versions of their parents [yeah, you know they will, and it's gross].

I don't mean to suggest that you can "do something" about this or even that my perceptions can be anything other than subjective are anything other than a priori fact, objective as gold bricks. I have never had a problem with the school staff or the teachers. I do feel that to keep silent about why we are not returning next year wouldn't be right; not only because you might make the faulty assumption that we're not happy with the teachers or academics. Of course, if there is anything that can be changed I would prefer it to be now, when my son is still in the midst of his school experience.

Although school should not about me and is about my son, my experiences there do make an impact on him. I do wish I had the experience that friends of mine have shared about their children's preschools, in which the community is nurturing, diverse has more than one token "colored" child in the ENTIRE SCHOOL, lasting, and inclusive. Perhaps there are
subtle things that can be done to coax the school parents in that direction beat the tar out of the motherfuckers? If you can affect the general climate in that regard, more power to you.

Thank you for listening. New Ro is in the house!