Source: Reddit
So this happened in the early 90’s. I was in high school and there was a girl who decided I was easy pickings to bully, let’s call her Becky.
I was shy, naieve, didn’t have the wit to say anything back. I didn’t have a lot of friends (I spent most of my spare time reading in my bedroom). So she was constantly saying stuff derogatory to me within ear shot to hurt me.
In English class, we had to pick a novel and do a presentation on it.
I read “I know why the caged bird sings” by Maya Angelou. I did a monologue in first person. I thought it was great, it took A LOT of courage for me to do that monologue. I did ok. Teacher gave me a high score.
Enter Becky.
This was a year or two after the movie “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” was released.
Becky did her presentation on the book she read, “Dracula”. It was very obvious that she didn’t read the book, only watched the movie, and didn’t think anyone would notice.
Guess what, Becky. I read the book.
At the end of the presentation, we were allowed to ask questions. She’d already planted questions with her followers, the Becky Posse. They asked, what she thought, would be great thoughtful questions that would show how well she knew and understood the movie, ahem, I mean book.
I raised my hand, she rolled her eyes.
“what did you think of the importance of ‘The Bloofer Lady’?”
(I know Lucy was the Bloofer Lady, but I didn’t recall it being mentioned in the movie, only the book.)
She went as white as Vampire Lucy, then as red with anger as Gary Oldman’s armour.
The teacher, having already known she was presenting the movie and didn’t read the book, did a poor job at hiding her smirk. It was awesome.
Becky stammered out a weak generic answer, having no clue who The Bloofer Lady was. Then sat down. I could feel the daggers in the back of my head.
I didn’t care. The knowing smirk of the teacher gave me so much empowerment. I never let anything Becky said after that get under my skin.
