And That's Okay

You Don't Stand for Anyone's Shit

Just as the title says, you do not stand for anyone's shit. You do not allow people to get away with the horrible things they're doing. You rat. You're a rat. You're considered the lowest of the low in the teenage community. 

But hey, that's okay. That's hell of an okay. It's amazing. 

Why is it so amazing to be something every teenager hates? 

Because you're protecting them. All of them. With every horrible thing you tell an adult about, the more horrible things that adult stops. The more horrible things that are stopped, the safer everyone is. 

Picture this:

You're on a school bus. Those big yellow turtle top busses that your parents loved to call "The Big Banana" when you were in preschool. One of those bright, atrocious things filled with horrible memories. 

On this particular banana of hell, it's pandemonium. It starts off with paper balls being thrown.  A minor nuisance- you blow it off. Then it horribly progresses. In the blink of an eye, lead pens and pencils are being hummed across the bus like arrows poised perfectly to hit the target. The target, of course, is some unsuspecting teenager's eye or even the bus driver's eye. The teenagers ignore the bus driver as she yells and threatens to call the police. They continue throwing the deadly projectiles. One hits you right behind your ear. It falls to the floor. You step on it, preventing the guy behind you from sneaking it from under the seat. 

Then it calms. The calmness doesn't last long. Someone in the very back of the bus, the last seat, only four seats behind you, pulls out a lighter. You've had bad experiences with scenes like this- a joint being lit that affected everyone on the bus and a cigarette that irritated your throat to the point where you went into coughing fits and had to move to the front of the bus near the opening doors. You tense, waiting to smell the familiar smell of either one. 

You don't. Instead, it's much worse. It's the smell of burning paper. Paper turning into roasted coffee bean brown flecks falling onto the bus floor. Paper that is easily eaten by flames. Flames that can easily become uncontrollable in less than a second. More paper gets lit. The fire starters open a window to let out the scent and to release bits of burning paper. 

You remove a headphone. No one ever pays attention to you; you're always quiet and inconspicuous. You're harmless to them. Maybe, you're not even there at all. You smirk, waiting for the information you need. 

"Dude, who lit that," one stoner asks. 

"I did," said the one in the very last seat. The firestarter. 

"Dude, that's sickkk! Remember when we lit that joint last year?"

"Yeah bro! Sucks we don't have one now."

You have all the information you need. You smirk and insert your headphone back into your, a layered version of "Drunk" by Ed Sheeran echoing pleasantly through them. 

It's your turn to exit the bus shortly after. Only a song later and you're walking the aisle to the front of the bus, the lead pen and paper ball you were hit with in your hand. The girl getting off before you tells the bus driver the information she knows. She tells the bus driver how you were hit with the lead pen. You hold the led pen, a black pen with a broken orange tab on the side of it, in the air as evidence. The bus driver sighs in disappointment. She likes you. You keep everyone safe. She hates that you were caught in the danger she was unable to stop. 

One girl involved in the pencil throwing and paper lighting widens her eyes in anger and laughs in disbelief. She can't believe the girl ratted! She runs to the back of the bus and tells her friends, and they all start cursing the girl as she walks off the bus. 

"Fucking faggot," one guy yells as the girl walks down her driveway. 

You take the two steps up to the bus driver and hand her the pencil. You throw the paper ball away in the small trash bin behind the driver's seat. You lean down and tell the bus driver, "Someone lit paper in the back of the bus. It was either James" (we'll call him James for the sake of anonymity) "or the guy in the brown beanie who gets off down one of those short roads down there."

She sighs and shakes her head. "I thought I smelled something."

The guy who yelled slurs at the girl who got off before you stars at you, owl eyed. Another rat! He can't believe it! He stares at the others who were involved, and they start throwing curses at you. You stand up straighter and smirk at them. They blink in shock at your blatant act of confidence. The bus driver yells, "At least we have some people who have some sense on this damn bus!"

"Who you talkin' 'bout?" the same guy from before asks. She nods at you and at the girl who just made it the rest of the way down her driveway. The bus driver takes off and drops you off at your house, only a few houses down from the girl's house. You walk off of the bus with a cocky smirk on your face and your head held up high as you hear the curses flying in the wind behind you.

Do you know why this is okay? Do you know why it's such a great, an amazing, thing to be a rat? Because you protect others from danger. You prevent others from being in the hospital or prevent a serious accident from occurring due to the ignorance of the ones performing the acts you're calling out. You're a protector of the people around you, yourself included. That is why it is such a damn good thing to be a rat. You don't stand for anyone's shit.