This is What’s Up radio broadcasting from big, beautiful clear-channel WALTZ. I’m Tuck Avery. My partner in crime is Buzz Belton. We wanna know what’s up with you. Who we got on the line, Buzz? Well, Tuck, Alecia, from Southside wants to know what can be done about the mean girls at her kid’s school.
Tuck: You’re on the air, Alecia. What’s up?
Alecia: Can you hear me?
Buzz: Yes we can. Let’s WALTZ.
Alecia: My daughter, Trisha, she’s twelve, comes home crying so often. I don’t know what to do about it. She’s a very sweet girl. I think they pick on her because they she doesn’t fight back. I tell her to just walk away, even though she can’t walk too far away at school. She calls the brats that pick on her, meanies. I call them monsters!
Tuck: That’s what kids call bullies and nasties of all sorts. It’s a gentler word than any of them deserve. What they deserve is a damn good whacking. Buzz: Better yet, reform school or a real long suspension. Alecia: I don’t think they have reform school, anymore.
Tuck: Alecia’s right about that. Buzz: Have you tried talking to the Principal?
Tuck: I don’t think too many Principals these days have reliable principles.
Alicia: Trisha would be very upset if I went to the Principal. The other kids would call her a tattletale. Buzz: Maybe Trisha could give the next mean girl a serious slapping. I knew
a kid in 4th grade that always carried a crescent wrench in his back pocket in case he met anyone who needed an attitude adjustment. Alecia: Oh dear, no, Trisha couldn’t do that. She’s
a nice girl.
Tuck: I hear the music coming up. We’ll continue after the break. Buzz: thanks for calling, Alecia. Tuck and I will ponder the problem of meanness when we get back.
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Tuck: We’re back. Buzz: Ya’ know, a little more pounding, and a lot less pondering might get better results. Tuck: You’re right, except that’s harder to do in our sissified time. Sometimes it happens, but not nearly often enough. Modern society is nicer to meanies than it is to decent people. Excuses are made for bad behavior. Worthless jibber-jabber psychological treatment is about all that’s ever done. None of it works.
Buzz: Mean people don’t change. They’re mean, they can’t be anything else.
Tuck: Ya’ know, The word, Meanies, begins with, Me; the word, Meanies sounds a little bit like, Me Annie’s. That’s pretty close to Mean Girls. Maybe the kid’s word for it is the most accurate. Meanies always put, Me, before anyone else. Meanness is directly related to selfishness. Me, Me, Me, insidiously overwhelms, you, you, and you.
Buzz: In-sid-a-what . . . ? Tuck: Insidious – a gradual process of corruption. There’s probably nothing to be done about it. It’s slow and subtle, a little worse each day. Unnoticed, until it’s way too late.
Pop culture regularly turns cretinous lowlifes into media Stars. They’ve become role models for meanness. Fans encourage them; fans spread the problem. The best thing to do with mean people is to shun them. Treat them like the moral lepers they are. That’d work in the schoolyard as well as anywhere else.
Buzz: Is the country too far gone to fix.?
Tuck: Don’t know. Our guest for the next segment, Monsignor Kellerman, might be able to shed some light on that.
We’ll be right back.
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Tuck: Welcome Monsignor Kellerman. You’ve written quite a lot on the subject of moral turpitude; what should we think about meanness? Buzz: Turp-a-what? Tuck: Oh, stop it Buzz, this is a serious subject.
Monsignor Kellerman: It is a serious subject, and I’m afraid it’s been with us since Cain slew Abel. Meanness is an affliction of the soul. It can’t be fixed by reform school, not even by incarceration. In your earlier segment, you, Tuck, suggested meanness is related to selfishness.
I believe that’s right. Selfishness is the cause; meanness is the product. Moreover, mean people are born that way and they stay that way. The old notion of the “bad seed” isn’t far wrong.
Buzz: Can nothing can be done?
Monsignor Kellerman: We can pray for the souls of the “meanies”, and, as you have already said, we can shun them.
We can’t fix meanies, but we can deny them our company.
If your previous caller, Alicia, is listening, I recommend she enroll her daughter in a Catholic school near her home.
The nuns will watch over Trisha, she’ll get a better education, and she’ll be with other students for whom decency is only the most basic of their virtues.
Tuck: I suppose any parochial school might do.
Monsignor Kellerman: Perhaps. Naturally, I prefer Catholic schools.
Buzz: Well, there’s the music. Thanks for joining us , Monsignor.
Monsignor Kellerman: Bless you all.
Tuck: Tune-in tomorrow; we’ll WALTZ again and talk about . . . What’s Up.