There was this loud, obnoxious girl who very few people liked at the time. She was behind me in the lunch queue and for whatever reason she and her friend started pushing me, which had a domino effect up the line. The lunch staff noticed and blamed me, demanding I either stop or leave. Now, I'd been in this queue for around an hour if I remember rightly, so there was no way I was leaving empty handed. I told the lunch staff that it wasn't me, it's these clowns behind me, but the lunch lady didn't care/didn't believe me.
So the pushing, laughing and taunting continues and at one point this girl starts saying things like "What are you going to do? You gonna hit me? Go on then." (I don't remember the exact words because this happened years ago).
So... without thinking anything of it, I whacked her one. I'd grown up with 3 sisters and had never really heard of the whole "YOU ARE A MAN YOU ARE BIG YOU DO NOT HIT WOMEN THEY ARE SMALL AND FRAIL AND THEY CRY" concept. To me, at the time, women were on an equal playing field, I didn't even know what the word "Taboo" meant, but as soon as I swung a fist this girl exploded into tears and snot and screams. It was really something.
After that I abandoned the queue and the idea of lunch, walked out of school and found a place to sit and think about what had just happened. I don't remember what I was thinking at the time. The headmaster eventually found me - apparently the whole school was on red alert looking for a fist-swingin' maniac - and he told me that as soon as I close my fist it becomes a weapon. It was really profound advise. If I remember rightly I didn't get suspended for what I had done, but I did get sent home.
Anyway, It seemed as though everyone heard about what had happened and surprisingly they were over the moon. I mean, I was ashamed of what I'd done, but people said I was a legend because of it; they were fuckin' manic. I received high-fives and hand shakes from people I didn't know and I was introduced as "The guy who punched whatsherface." for the rest of my highschool years and people knew who that was.