Do you know what I’ve discovered? I’d love to have the power to “zap” the hell out of people when they get up in my face with all their trash talkin’. I’ve always been a great fan of the Harry Potter books and all fantasies with wizards and wands, and after watching the latest and final installment of “Deathly Hallows-Part 2” (I had read the book ages ago, of course), I truly wished I had a magic wand. But unlike Harry, I’m not so sure I could have given up possession of the “Elder Wand” (the most powerful wand that ever existed).
As I languidly daydreamed about what it would be like to have my own super-powerful wand which I would name “Bitch-zap,” I thought to myself that I could do some serious damage against all the people who got on my nerves. Depending on who pissed me off and in what mood I was in that day, you’d hear a “BITCH-ZAP” here and a “BITCH-ZAP” there—here a “ZAP,” there a “ZAP,” everywhere a “BITCH-ZAP”! Now don’t be alarmed! With my super-charged ability to cast a variety of spells, I would be very benevolent and would only turn most people into a motley crew of odd looking animals—until they shut the fuck up. It wouldn’t be about physically harming anyone, as much as it would be about making them “get up outta my face.”
ZAP!

Google Image/Eleanor’s Favorite “Tomato Frog Zap”
ZAP-ZAP!

Google Image/Eleanor’s Favorite “Thumb Nail Frog” Zap
I think I would limit my powers to a couple of categories (one never wants to be greedy in one’s grasp for wand power): personal grievances and political annoyances.
For the men who did me wrong in the past, I used to think I would obliterate them from the face of the Earth. But in retrospect, meeting them helped me realize what I didn’t want, and when I met my husband, WW (white and wonderful), my vision had been greatly sharpened, and I knew he was the real deal. So now I’d just turn those “players” into Blob fish and bury them at the bottom of the deepest sea.
ZAP-ZAP!

Google Image/Eleanor’s “Blob fish Zap” used against players
For the employers who’ve represented “The Man” in my journey (they’ve all been white and male), I’d turn those silly white men into Axolotls and toss them to the bottom of the deepest sea, especially the one who told me that he thought I wasn’t very bright (I had disagreed with him on something). That “Boss-man” told me I should make a note that when he walks into a room he is normally the smartest person there on any given day; therefore, nothing I had to say could possibly trump what he had already declared.
ZAP-ZAP-ZAP!

Google Image/Eleanor’s “Axolotl Boss Zap”
When my teenagers started hurling their “sassy-mouth,” right-of-passage smack toward me, I wouldn’t have wanted them to come to any harm, but I would have used my Bitch-zap wand in a heartbeat to “zap-a-zip” on those argumentative sassy mouths and would have kept them zipped until their late twenties when they began to see my brilliance as it should have been seen at sixteen, and who now think “I’m all that and a bag of chips” (Girls, that’s all I’m sayin’)!
ZAP!

Google Image/Eleanor’s “Bird of Paradise Zap” Used Specifically for Mouthy Teenagers
When it came to politics, I would have a field day! Ann Coulter and her slave mentality of “our blacks are so much better than their blacks” would be sent back to Madagascar with her suitable rodent-like teeth and extended middle finger that she could no longer use against all the good people everywhere who oppose her snarky, mean-spirited commentary. This Negro would insure that her middle finger could only be used to forage for grubs out of the knots of trees.
BITCH-ZAP!

Google Image/Eleanor’s “Aye-Aye Zap” (Reserved for Ann Coulter only)
Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, the entire cast of Fox News, and Pat Buchannan with their barely disguised racism against Jews, Blacks, and Latinos (who would like to see us all “banished” from their “great country”) would be zapped into an animal that rarely sees the light of day and has no human contact of any color.
ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!

Google Image/Eleanor’s “Star-nosed Mole Zap” for Fox News and Racist Radio Pundits
And of course, I’ve made it well known that I have no regard for people who claim to speak in God’s name, claiming that God told them to ascend, acquire, or acclaim a position of power when they’re just plain ol’ greedy, ambitious, and trying to promote a book.
EXHIBIT A: “I prayed and prayed and prayed—I’m a man of faith; I had to do a lot of praying for this one, more praying than I’d ever done before in my life. When I finally realized that it was God saying that this is what I needed to do, I was like Moses: ‘You’ve got the wrong man, Lord. Are you sure?’ Now, you’re not supposed to doubt God, but I’m going, ‘I think maybe you’re looking at somebody else’…but I did not look back.” Herman Cain’s Mountaintop experience as reported in Huffington Post.
Herman, let’s just say God did tell you to run for president. He didn’t tell you that you would win—now did he? Think about it. Anita Perry heard the same thing about her husband, Sarah Palin heard the same thing about herself, and Bachmann claims the same hotline to God. You can’t all be right. I zap-zap Hermie to the bottom of the sea—instantly!
ZAP! ZAP AND DOUBLE-ZAP TO BOTTOM OF SEA!

Google Image/Eleanor’s “Double Octopus Zap”
(Reserved for only the stupidest amongst us)
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I had a lot of grins and giggles pondering this harmless daydream for several days until the Penn State nightmare began to seep into my psyche. As I came out of the “clouds” to stare into the glare of reality, I realized I’d give anything to really have an Elder Wand with its “killing curse” because I would do a hell of a lot more than turn people into odd looking creatures. I’d do God’s job.

As any of my friends will tell you, I don’t know diddly-squat about football programs (I barely can recognize the shape of a football), but I know an inordinate amount about the evils of pedophilia. I know what it looks like, I know what it feels like, and I know what it sounds like. I was made painfully aware of its presence at ages 6, 7, and 8 and then again at ages 9, 10, and 11. Jerry Sandusky, I’ve read the Grand Jury Report from cover to cover, and I heard your shameless interview with Bob Costas. “Jerry Sandusky,” I KNOW YOU! I’m one of the millions of children who was left “alone, abandoned to evil, and weeping in the dark,”* because of perverts like you. If I had a magic wand, I’d point it at your penis and blow it to smithereens because I know your “voice,” and I know you’re guilty!
Jerry Sandusky, if I had the power I would go on a “seek and destroy” mission with my wand on behalf of all your victims and I wouldn’t stop until justice had been done. I don’t give a shit how many football games your “Joe-Pa” has won or how many great football programs he put into place. I don’t give a fuck if Penn State ever plays another football game as long as the Earth exists. I would make Coach Paterno, Asst. Coach McQueary, and all who colluded with them to keep your deviance under wraps, sit face to face with every victim of your touch, while they graphically relayed what you did to them and the subsequent trauma of trying to find their way onto the path of a “normal” life as they attempted to grow up. When Joe-Pa and all his cronies finished listening to the victims of Penn State, then I’d have them listen to all the victims of the Catholic Church, and finally they’d listen to my childhood terror.
I was six years old, Coaches Paterno and McQueary—six-years-old!
Coach Paterno, Assistant Coach McQueary, Athletic Director Curley, Vice President Schultz, and the janitors who saw Sandusky in action but never told, so as to protect their jobs: Do you have grandchildren, little nieces and nephews, or little godchildren? If forcing you to listen to the retelling of all our stories didn’t drive you insane, as to the prospect of this type of abuse happening to your own flesh and blood, then I’d finish you all off with a “zap” into Hell for your egregious sin of omission which allowed Sandusky to get away with the murder of our innocence, our psyches, and our childhood.
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But I don’t live in a daydream, and I refuse to become a monster in order to demolish one. I live in reality and I am discovering that I’ve had a magic wand all my life, and I’ve used it frequently: its name is forgiveness; its power is the reason I am sane.
I am discovering that forgiveness is not for the perpetrator as much as it is for the victim. I learned that a long time ago. The perpetrator(s) may never repent (mine never did), but forgiveness is still the most powerful wand of the day that allows the victim(s) to become a triumphant survivor(s) and get on with his or her life. I’m also discovering that to hang onto bitterness and revenge against the Jerry Sanduskys of the world allows the evil to continually rape us.
If I could give a magic wand to the precious “children” of Penn State, I’d give them the wand of forgiveness to be used toward their rapist and all who colluded against them. However, if I could “zap” the misguided students of Penn State who rioted on campus like petulant children upon hearing about their beloved coach’s firing, I would zap them with the wand of “compassion” and “accountability.” They are not too young to learn something Joe-Pa failed to exemplify: all children are our children.

The author on the left at six-years-old
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Upon finishing this post, I learned of another sexual abuse cover-up that happened at The Citadel in their summer camp program by one of their camp counselors (Louis Neal “Skip” ReVille) four years ago. The Citadel did not report it to the police. Mr. Reville graduated and went on to become the principal of Coastal Christian Preparatory School “where he coached sports for several years,” according to the Huffington Post. ReVille was arrested in October for allegedly molesting at least five children unrelated to the Citadel whose program is now defunct.
Have we had enough?
Speak up! Keep a child safe.
www.stopitnow.org
No higher cause can trump that obligation (natural justice) — not a church, and certainly not a football program. And not even a lifetime of heroism† can make up for leaving a single child alone, abandoned to evil, weeping in the dark.* From an Op-Ed NY Times piece, “The Devil And Joe Paterno” by Ross Douthat (†Referencing Dario Castrillon Hoyos who “was elevated to the College of Cardinals and placed in charge of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy, where he came to embody the culture of denial that characterized Rome’s initial response to the sex abuse crisis.”)
******
Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again. —Dag Hammarskjold
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It really doesn’t matter if the person who hurt you deserves to be forgiven. Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. You have things to do and you want to move on. Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher.com Weblog, July 7, 2003
Text by Eleanor Tomczyk © 2011
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