gah, Scrappy, that's a rough situation. I have no advice...I can see where bringing it up may be the wrong thing to do but also letting it slide could be. Could you maybe bring up what Brenda referenced in general to her. Tell her you know that it's going to be a really hard time or something? Is she involved in ongoing counseling or anything? Or AA?

Hey Susan, do you work at the hospital that starts with an H? I'll be there in the morning, getting my head checked! I will wave in your direction. Assuming I manage to get up, get there, and find the damn place by 7:30AM. BLEH.

Yes, I'm at the place with the views of the harbor. I didn't see your message until just now, so I guess you're having your tests or are maybe already done. I hope everything went well!

ftr, my uncles (and my great uncles) were and are some of my favorite people in the world! Even my great uncle who slapped me once because I'd sassed him and when he threaten to smack me I told him he wouldn't. oops! Still loved him like crazy. And the feeling was mutual.

I have almost zero tolerance for meanness like that. If it is to kids, I will go from zero to in your face in about 2 seconds.

You would have LOVED my 7th grade art teacher. Two of his favorite quotes:

"Aimee's face would make a freight train take a dirt road."

"When Aimee was born her mother said, 'What a treasure!' and her dad said, 'Yeah - let's bury it.'"

It makes me laugh and honestly, at the time, I never thought that there was anything wrong with what either of them said to me or that it should hurt my feelings. I just laughed with the rest of the family/class and went along with it.

Now, I feel like sending them the therapy bills. Jack ass. Jack tard.

ION - I R hungry.

I am tacoed!

Bragger! Mean mean bragger!

My half dozen Uncles, several of whom weren't much older than I was, would get very compeditive (mostly with each other but occasionally with us) and rough-house too much sometimes. And sometimes they'd tease (though I don't remember it being personally insulting like that). But eventually they'd get scolded for it by my Parents or my Grandparents and it would stop.

I guess I'm very lucky in that regard.

I just realized that although I have an uncle, and I'm pretty sure I must have met him at some point, I did not meet him for a second time until my grandparents' funeral. (At which, I mean, he looked very much like my father, so it wasn't hard to guess who he was.)

I have aunts, but they're not the teasing kind. The hand-me-down "artistic" clothing kind, yes.

We don't use uncles for teasing. We use cousins and second cousins sometimes once removed. It can get pretty bad, and I despise the "it builds character!" excuse. It's not building good character, though. It's building people to lash out cruelly.

We didn't get it much, and I never minded leaving the room if they started up out of hand on me.