With a name like �hrcuteness�, you�d think she would be just the sweetest thing imaginable. A young, professional woman, happily married, hrcuteness thought there was nothing wrong with smoking pot occasionally, as long as you did it �responsibly.� I was furious when I read that, and immediately directed a post to her with my usual points about how a judge won�t care how �responsibly� you are smoking illegal marijuana joints, and who is she that she thinks she�s above the law, and does she plan to have kids someday and is this what she�s going to teach them, and if she is a grown woman with a good job, she of ALL people should know better than to such a thing, etc. It just drove me insane that people were so nonchalant about this issue. How were they raised? Didn�t their parents teach them any differently? As with lacy_white_underwear, I intended to take hrcuteness under my wing and try to talk some sense into her in a motherly sort of way. I was going to be nice and respectful, in part because she was young, and I had hope for her. I always had hope. I tried to see the good in people. We posted a lot on this topic, and even emailed. One day I slipped, and called her immature. I shouldn�t have done that, I admit. Other than that, I thought I did a good job of treating her as I would a daughter who I cared about.
It didn�t do any good, though. She joined in with the Tough Chicks and began making fun of me for the oral sex thing, telling me how she likes to give bj�s because she loves her husband and wants to please him, and that I am a frigid, selfish prude. It got so I couldn�t read her posts anymore.
Every time these women made fun of me, I felt I had to defend myself. And then the attacks and insults just got worse. Hummy was one of the few women who did not make fun of me for that. However, she did once say she had no problem with oral sex, and went on to describe the swirling �tongue action� she used on her husband. I was not happy about this at all. She knew how much all this talk upset me, yet she did it anyway. When I first met her, she had been surprised at my angry outbursts at the Tough Chicks. �You haven�t been here to witness all the abuse,� I told her. �You show up every once in awhile and don�t see what has happened to cause me to get so mad. You need to come more often.�
�I�ll do that,� Hummy replied.
But joining the bully boards every day didn�t seem to help; if anything, she just became closer to the Tough Chicks. A married mother of two grown daughters, Hummy was a born-again Christian, friendly to everyone. But what I found strange was that she hung around with all the Tough Chicks and bullies on these older stories, and freely admitted that she smoked pot in her youth and would smoke it again if it were legal. Now, it�s one thing to have smoked pot in your youth, but to want to smoke it as a grown adult�a mother in her 40s�is something else, I told her. Especially since she said she was a Christian. It just didn�t make sense. I tried to seriously ask her some questions about this. I wasn�t trying to provoke, I just really wanted to know how she felt. Did her daughters know that their mother would smoke pot if it were legal? And did she realize that most parents are AGAINST drugs, even if they were legal? I asked her a few other pointed questions as well, I can�t remember what, but she couldn�t seem to come up with any real answers�nothing that satisfied me, anyway.
Silver2sea came along a bit later. Apparently she had been on other boards, but I had never seen her. Her arrival just about gave me a nervous breakdown. I�ll never forget it, how I felt that night. When she joined the board, I found out she was a 57-year-old grandmother and against marijuana. I thought, �Wow, finally someone who will be supportive!� But that was not to be. I can�t remember how the events transpired, but obviously I must have posted my usual points about how most parents do all they can to keep their kids off drugs and out of trouble with the law, and that even if pot were legal, most parents would still raise their kids to never use drugs, at any age. It was such a simple viewpoint I thought it needed no other explanation and that surely a woman such as Silver would understand perfectly. Well she didn�t.
I think she asked me something about why I thought marijuana was bad. I probably answered that of course it�s a mind-altering drug. What did she expect me to say? But that wasn�t enough. She kept asking me. What did she want out of me? I wasn�t going to copy and paste all the things from anti-drug sites; we have all seen those things before. Besides, for every negative aspect attributed to marijuana, someone will come along and refute it. It was pointless to argue in that respect. I had tried it before and those types of discussions only went around in circles with nobody winning. That�s why I just simply stated the obvious. Couldn�t she understand that simple concept? Apparently not, because she started to get nasty, telling me I had a �victim mentality� and that I �couldn�t hold up my end of an argument.� Here I thought this nice, older woman would be on my side, and she was turning out to be worse than the Tough Chicks! What had I said that was so wrong??? I was as against marijuana as she was, I thought I was a good, moral, decent person like her, and yet she was starting posts about me having a �victim mentality!� A victim mentality about WHAT??? What was she TALKING about??? I was becoming enraged, about ready to pull out my hair. I felt like I just couldn�t win. If I focused on how �Drugs are bad, mmmkay?� people accused me of buying into the �Reefer Madness� theory where one puff will turn you into an insane maniac. If I focused on how marijuana is against the law, people accused me of saying that drugs are bad ONLY because they are against the law. That�s why I tied it into one inclusive sentence or two, about how most parents would try to raise their kids to stay off drugs even if they were legal. Why couldn�t she understand that??? Not only did she not get it, she was attacking me as well, saying all these crazy things about victim mentalities and not being able to hold up my end of an argument. I was just going nuts, I couldn�t believe yet ANOTHER tough chick had joined the boards�a 57-year-old grandmother at that�and I was getting so sick of everyone misunderstanding me and putting me down, I felt I was going to lose control. I had to stop reading her posts, and soon I left the board.
Coner13 was apparently a friend of Silver�s, because she warned me to not say anything bad to her. I tried to explain that I wasn�t saying anything bad, that she was the one who was attacking me. Coner and I had posted a lot to each other in the previous months. I didn�t know much about her except that she had a good job, a boyfriend she loved, and liked to smoke pot and give bj�s. I often asked her questions about herself, trying to find out what she was all about, what made her smoke pot. I had been nice, adding humor such as, �Now hand over the joint� (so I could throw it away). She was reluctant to give me much information, and we never got very far. She wouldn�t even post a photo.
One day I saw Coner mention to someone that her mother taught her to never marry a man you hadn�t slept with first. I tried to tell her as nicely and tactfully as I could that this is not right. I stressed that I was not putting down her mother and that I was sure she was a wonderful woman and loved her daughter very much, but that this principle was wrong. Coner exploded, shouting at me to not say anything bad about her mother. I reiterated that I was not saying her mother was bad, but that this principle of not marrying a man unless you have slept with him is not right. I tried to explain further as to why this isn�t right, but she was just furious and really let me have it. I was so sad. I had tried so hard to talk to Coner one on one about this, to at least make her think without offending her, and she took it all wrong. Eventually she left Yahoo for good.
Marcus still popped his head in occasionally, just to laugh at the pot-smokers. �HAHAHA, I see all you losers are still lighting up, and still making fun of Cindy,� he�d say in his blunt way. But he could see that I was still holding my own for the most part, and encouraged me to keep talking to them. �Cindy, never stop posting!� he said. I was determined not to. I had hope for everyone.
Kristclear was still around occasionally, joining in with the bullies, along with others such as urrrrit, gimme_a_breaaak, amooska, lisa3d2, factmcfactstein, and punkygirl, who delighted in telling me that my husband was cheating on me because he is married to such a prude. Angela was still part of the gang as well, although I classified her as one of the �least tough� of these women. She still could get quite vicious, however, which saddened me. With every insult, I just couldn�t help but be reminded of the emails we had exchanged. A lot of good those did.
TickyTack was among the worst of the Tough Chicks. She minced no words in letting me know she thought I was a frigid, selfish, lazy prude and worse. I hated her, absolutely hated her. And yet the others were nice to her, including Hummy. They were all having fun helping to plan her wedding. It just made me sick. How could they be nice to her???
I�d get mad at Hummy because she wouldn�t defend me. People like Internet Fake Tree would hurl insult after insult at me, and Hummy wouldn�t say a word. When I called her on this, she said that she and Internet Fake Tree had been friends for years, and that she is �a sweet person.� Sweet???? How could she say that??? One time I was on a board, and a woman named �not_before_i�ve_had_my_coffee� said very mean things to me about the bj thing, calling me timid, sanctimonious, a prude, etc. I was upset and hurt, but all Hummy said was, �Hi, Coffee.� So she was friends with her, too??? How could Hummy be friends with all these meanies???
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Chapter 17