This might take a little while, but in retrospect this was pretty reprehensible, albeit childish.

When I was in 5th grade, my friends and I enacted a devious planned we coined Operation Chunky Butt

Here's some backstory: Myself and my two best friends, let's call them Max and Frankie, were little hellions. Not necessarily bad kids, but we got up to mischief and caused problems here and there for our authority figures but nothing too extreme. That is until Gary showed up.

Gary was huge. I mean fucking gargantuan. We didn't know this then but in looking back it's obvious he was held back at least a few years and was fully into puberty unlike me and my snot-nosed buddies. Now, being the entitled dicks we were, we thought this guy was trouble already. He shouted, pushed people and all around seemed like a jackass. Gary was intimidating and quick to fly off the handle but he never seemed to bother us so we lived in peace for a month or so. His size and strength was daunting and we hoped to leave him alone and he us.

That is until we were sitting on our designated "cool kids" bench one afternoon at recess and Gary decided he was tired of terrorizing the younger kids and chose our bench to sit down on. We immediately told him he could not, you know, cause it was OUR bench, and we had like been here all year and he hadn't so he didn't have any right to it. To which all 200 some pounds of Gary towered before us and he told us we could go find somewhere else to sit "or else."

Now we couldn't acquiesce to such a request, that would tarnish our credibility.

So we say no. He shoves Max and Max hits his head on the bench. Frankie swings at Gary and cuffs him in the ear. Gary immediately bellows and bowls Frankie and I over. The recess lady comes sprinting over just before Max was about to drop kick Gary in his no-doubt larger balls. We get separated and, as my older brothers taught me never involve the authorities, we just make it sound like a game and say everything was fine and that we were just rough housing. Gary protested for a moment before realizing that we could avoid punishment and we shook hands and "made up."

So we did, and we went our different ways. And then we began to plot.

I mean, how dare this kid take over OUR bench? He hurt Max! And he's like way bigger than us so that's not fair. Dude, we need to get rid of this guy. So somehow over the course of the next three days we concocted a scheme to get rid of Gary once and for all.

No. We didn't kill him. We established a pact of secrecy and dubbed our mission Operation Chunky Butt. Because, well, he was chunky. And we were in fifth grade so that was hilarious.

Step one was to begin stealthily terrorizing him. We needed to antagonize him so he would attack us.

Step two was to lure him into the sight of a teacher.

Step three was to have him caught in the act whereupon we would delineate all the times he had fought, hurt or bullied others (no, we had no idea what we were doing was bullying... we believed we were doing the school a much needed service).

Step four would be the obvious delivery of a punishment and we would be rewarded for keeping the school safe and secure.

Step one took some time as we taunted him by moving his stuff around, laughing at him when he would shout at people, just all around really unkind behavior that began to piss him off more and more until the fateful day that he lost his mind.

Once again, it was recess, and once again, we were on our bench. We see him coming from across the yard and stand up to prepare ourselves but before anyone says anything he just straight up clocks me in the head and I go down like a sack of potatoes. He must have known it was us the whole time and finally had had enough. What i remember then is a blur. I'd never been hit before so I kinda came to with an ice bag sitting near the nurses office with Max next to me with a bruised wrist and i was absolutely terrified.

I had never been in trouble but to my surprise I was sent back to class. Strange, I thought, perhaps Operation Chunky Butt was a success!

But then an hour later, the intercom crackled, "Allhailtheburger, please report to Principle Anderton's office immediately."

My stomach sank. Eyes bugged out. That wasn't my name was it? Oh god my parents are gonna kill me. The walk to that office was hell. And when I sat down in front of the principle (a massive and bearded gentleman who received a purple heart) glowered at me over his spectacles. I was fucked.

"Allhailtheburger, i'm sure you know why you're here."

I gulped, panic etched into my face.

"Uh, not really..." i managed to get out.

He sighed, removed his glasses and put his hands over his mouth as he said, "uh, well, maybe you'd be able to tell me..." at this point he snorted which seemed uncharacteristic and coughed out, "about Operation Chunky Butt."

He was laughing. Or at least trying very hard to suppress it. But he consoled himself and went to inform me that whether or not i was involved in this didn't matter as my name had been brought up when this Operation was discovered. He informed me it was bullying and he expected better of me, etc. etc. etc.

BUT THEN. He folded his hands and said, "now, if we are understanding that what you did was inappropriate and it will never happen again, there is something you should know..."

He went on to say that Gary was not going to be attending our school anymore because as it turns out, his bullying had been prevalent and constant throughout his time here and he wanted to make sure that I recongized that what I and my friends had done was just as bad. However, given that it was all of our first real offense, we would be given after school detention for a week.

Trying not to smile I thanked him and left, almost skipping back to class.

The next day Gary was gone. We heard he had been transferred to a new school.

Operation Chunky Butt was a success and our infamy spread throughout the school.

That said, the guilt that I felt for no doubt making Gary's life even worse than it already was still sticks with me today. There's a good chance there was a lot more going on in his life than any of us knew or could understand and our actions probably made him feel even more like an outsider. The dude probably just wanted friends and didn't know how to do that.

TL;DR - Enacted a mission to bully and bully and succeeded. Shame on us.