I talked to my daughter about the bullying yesterday. She has the family Mars Mercury signature in her chart.

“They haven’t done much this week,” she said. “They call me weird but I don’t care about that.”

“You don’t?” This always surprises me.

“No. They think weird is bad but I think weird is good so who cares? They think it’s an insult but I don’t.”

I laughed. ‘Go, baby. But if someone has actually taken snot from their nose and put it on your shirt, you can probably put a stop to that pretty easily.”

“How?’

“You can write about it. Oh, something about how this guy in school… you can change his name because everyone will know who you’re talking about anyway. And you can put in there about how this guy actually reached in his nose and pulled this snot out, and what was he thinking? I mean, what was he thinking when he decided to do this?’

“I don’t know but it’s gross.”

“Agreed. And you can say so and whatever else you think. Personally, I think you are a writer and he is a boy who wipes his snot on people. So which do you think is more elevated?”

“The writer.”

“Yeah. And you can write like nobodies business. And I am pretty sure you can write something that embarrasses this kid so badly he’ll keep his snot in his nose and off other people for the rest of his life.”

She laughed.

“Think about it. You could lay it out in slow motion. He reached in his nose with his fingers and grabbed… you know. Ugh. And he did it at school, no less. With witnesses, the freak! What a disgusting nose-picking freak! You could say, I know this boy is hormonal but come on!”

She laughed.

“Yep, you could mess him up bad. You could have the whole class laughing at him and as far as I am concerned, you’d be doing him a favor. Plus you’d have a good piece for your class… something interesting. How about that? He gets embarrassed and you get an A! So whatever. These are just some of my ideas. I just want you to know you can use his energy to fuel your creativity. And once he sees you getting a benefit from what he’s doing, you can be sure he’s going to back off. And keep his snot in his nose for Godsakes, the stupid freak. But you get the idea. You can slaughter this guy at will. So just decide if you want to. If it sounds like fun, then do it. If not, then I guess he gets to slide.”

We both laughed.

“And you’ll probably let him slide, won’t you?”

“Yep, probably.”

“I know it. It’s because you’re benevolent and for that I am proud. And I am pretty sure you’ll get back at him anyway,” I said.

“Really? How?”

“Just wait’ll you’re in high school. Because he’s going to want a date with you and won’t that be a hoot. You can go out with him if you want, honey. But if you bring him over here I’m going to say, hey there nose picker! Nice to meet you!”

We both snorted.

My daughter is 11, almost 12 and she has a pen.