you be the judge

I want to share this letter I received today. Oddly enough, it is actually from the person I mentioned in my previous post. I need to give some background on this before setting myself up for you all to think I am a rude jerk.

In Junior high and High school, this person was the type to laugh at any abnormality she could find. I cut my own bangs one time only(I stress ONE time) because I cut them too short. At school the next day, we'll call her Voldemort, had to make a comment about me obviously cutting my own hair. When I denied it she laughed with her buddies and walked away. She called up a friend of mine once to tell her she had an ugly nose. I know these things mentioned are petty, but that was junior high. Need I remind anyone how much Jr high really sucked? I didn't need anyone else making fun of me, I was doing a pretty good job scraping the bottom of the self-esteem barrel.

High school wasn't much different. Luckily she started partying a bit and left well enough alone, for the most part. Of course, there were always opportunities for her to laugh, rather cackle, at anything that could make you feel like the lesser person.

Flash forward to January...This summer will be my 10 year class reunion. She decided she was going to start planning it without checking to see who might have been in charge or anything. The thing is that I am the one who should technically be in charge. I was class president(yes, please hold the applause) and I planned the five year, which she chose not to attend, or even respond to. That last part seemed like I was on a soap box. Maybe. I really don't mean it to be.

If anyone else from my class would have started planning, I probably would have let them have it. It's just that it's her.

We had the first meeting a month ago. It was pretty ridiculous. She wanted to talk about having a fundraiser. In fact, she wanted to talk about it so much, we were there for two hours and never decided on a specific date, and didn't even talk about having it anywhere other than a place she wanted to use which we won't know about until the end of May. At one point I asked if we had decided on a date, to which she responded thinking I was talking about a fundraiser. Seriously? I've done fundraisers for things I like to call "good causes." You know, like a youth group mission trip, or for a children's hospital, even Big Brothers Big Sisters. How can I justify asking anyone for money to support a class reunion?

So we had another meeting Sunday. I decided this time I wasn't going to be as passive as the last meeting where we didn't shut down the idea of having a fundraiser. This time went really well. We got a ton accomplished. A couple of times we would get off on tangents to which I would have to bring everyone back because I had another meeting. Voldemort wanted to talk about her fundraisers--that's right plural! I tried to stress the importance of focus on the reunion planning first. We then made time for her to talk about the first fundraiser, a garage sale. It is this Saturday. She made no effort to inform of any information other than the date up until this meeting. She still didn't know any information about set-up or tear-down times. We agreed that if she would email us the specifics we would do our best to make it. (Even I said I could help set up) She then wanted to talk about another fundraiser. I asked her if it would be okay for us to talk about it at our next meeting because we were short on time. I asked twice. Both times she agreed it was fine. At least five of us left feeling pretty good about our progress...then today, I received this email...



I was hoping you would be able to clear something up for me. I am a little confused, because at the first class reunion meeting we talked about the garage sale and the bingo and I thought you wanted me to go ahead with planning those things. Yesterday, I felt like you were very rude to me and you acted like you didn't know what I was talking about. The only reason I even suggested fundraising activities was so that none of us would be out any money for the reunion. I don't need your approval or help for any of these activities, so I am planning on continuing with the activities since I already have them planned. The money can be donated to a worthy (insert high school name) cause in the name of the Class of 1997.


After receiving this email I (being the girl pulled instantly back into junior high) I called two of the girls who had been at the meeting. Of course I did the thing where you ask them how you behaved before you tell them why you want to know. Here's the thing, I tried REALLY hard to be respectful of everyone's opinion. We voted democratically on everything. Yes, there were some moments the focus had to be redirected, but it was nothing less than professional. (Except for the one time I told her raising money might not work the way we hope. She responded asking me if I wanted to foot the bill for everything. I responded, "I'm pretty sure everyone can just pay for their own stuff.") That was it with the rudeness. I promise.


So the question is, how do you respond to an email like this?