D'you know what? I'm not going to apologise for feeling good about meeting my bully working the checkouts on Christmas Eve. I've done jobs like that, nothing wrong with them- but whatever- think I'm a snob about that if you want. I know I'm not.
What made me smile inwardly was the fact that she looked so fucking miserable, not the fact that she was working the checkouts- the place was utter bedlam at the time.
She got treated by me like anyone in that position would have done- with politeness and the usual consideration I would extend to anyone as a matter of course. Part of what made me feel so damn good was being able to rise above it and behave like a decent human being at a time when our positions were somewhat reversed.
Hey, maybe her life is totes amazeballs- I don't know. Maybe she married a millionaire. Maybe she has achieved nirvana on her own personal plane of existence. I don't dwell on it.
So what if she was a child at the time? I managed to be both a child and not torment other people for jealousy, or because my home life was rubbish, or simply the fun of it. Lots of other kids did too.
I don't even think of my life now as a 'reward' for not being a bullying little shit when I was a child. It is what it is- I have what I have and I'm happy- that's the way the cookie crumbled for me. I'm lucky.
I merely enjoy the memory of the few moments when she was apparently miserable and I wasn't.
I like to think that after years of the grey fucking grimness that was my life at school, it evened up the balance a bit.
So what if it's gloating? I don't claim to be a saint. It stays in my head (and in pixels on an anonymous screen, now), because I am mature enough to realise that it's better to keep that sort of thing under control, and actually being spiteful achieves nothing.