Bullying – a Judge’s Prerogative

 Since imaginary Stump County was created way back in 2004 some folks here have been warning me that my contact with the real world has the potential to damage Stump County.

The Stump County Chronicles are a satire about an imaginary county located in rural Virginia. Stump County, population 999, is filled with imaginary people who are struggling with real life problems as they attempt to move into the 20 century. The writer, Half Whitt, is imaginary. He works for the imaginary newspaper, The Sneezeville Sentinel.
Trying to contact Half Whitt? Send letters to editor@southsidemessenger.com, or mail to The Southside Messenger, P.O. Box 849, Keysville, VA 23947 and we’ll pass it along!

I’ve always known they were right but thought if I was careful we could avoid it. Well drat my cats, iffen I haven’t done it anyway. Last week we were down at the Yak ‘n Snack drinking Big Orange sodas, chewing the fat, spittin’ on the stove and generally discussin’ things when I mentioned that a Judge Cunningham in the real world was forcing a couple of real world counties to build new courthouses just because he wants them.

Well, I didn’t realize it but some of the school chaps were sittin’ on the steps listenin’ to us. You know how kids are. They get all the way to the fifth grade and they think they know more than their parents and anyone else. So, one chap named Sneaky Pork decided he was going to be a judge one day and he wants to be just like Judge Cunningham in the real world.

He figured out that the best way he could practice to be a judge was to start bullying all of the kids in school. He started by takin’ all of their lunch money. He says iffen a real world judge can force folks to spend real money, an imaginary kid can do the same with imaginary kids and imaginary money.

All of the other parents got upset and complained to Sneaky’s pop, Mendacious Pork. Dacious took Sneaky out back of the woodshed and had a discussion that included a keen switch, a razor strop and right much yellin’ and shoutin’. Dacious came out of that discussion cussin’.

“Half,” he says, says he, “I hit that boy with ever thing I had and then he hit me with some of that there logic they been a teachin’ ‘em in school.” “Pop,” he said, “it’s like this. You can be bullied or you can be a bully. Which one ya want me to be?”

Then, Dacious says, “That boy started quotin’ you (meaning me, Half Whitt) and that dadburn real Judge. ‘Pop’ he says, says he, ‘I’m just doing this for their own safety. They orta be real glad I’m protectin’ ‘em and all its agonna cost ‘em is their lunch money. They can do without eatin’ better than they can be unsafe.’

“Then he says, ‘Pop,’ he says, says he, ‘if a real world judge can do it, it just can’t be wrong.’”

So I says, says I, “Look here, boy. Them kids ain’t in no danger. There ain’t ever been so much as a fist fight at that there school.

“’Pop,’ he says, says he, ‘Them kids ARE in danger iffen they don’t gi’ me their money. I done ‘splained to ‘em that I’m agonna kick their butts iffen they don’t gi’ me the money. They’re in real danger.’

“Half,” he says, says Dacious, “You done caused us a real problem by tellin’ them chaps what’s happening in the real world. What are ya gonna do bout it?”

“Dacious,” I said, “Ain’t nothing I c’n do. That boy uv yourne got one thing right. You can be bullied or you c’n be a bully. Don’t matter none iffen they is your boy er a judge- a bully is a bully.

“Only thing a bully understands is a bigger bully. Since your boy Sneaky is the biggest and oldest boy in the class the only hope we have is that about six of the other chaps get together and give him a world class butt-whippin’.

“Don’t know what those folks in the real world are gonna do. Tain’t legal to butt-whip a judge even iffen he is a-takin’ yo money.”