Immaturity 101

I recently did something I regret.
I have been going to College, and have been working incredibly hard at it. I feel like I am constantly defending (mostly to myself) why I would be attending classes filled with people who are close to half my age.
One such person, I condescendingly call "Skippy" because I don't know his real name, and because he absolutely drives me crazy; Skippy is constantly reminding me of how old I am. He'll reference things and then look at me and say things like, "in your generation..." or "when you were my age..." which adds to my insecurity and diminishes minutes to my mortality clock.
In my English class we are learning how to debate. For the last three weeks, almost exactly, we have been debating the classic debate of which is better, Vampires or Zombies? Seriously, for three mind-numbing, eye-gouging weeks, we have been debating over fictitious entities that frankly, I don't give a damn about.
Skippy brought up the subject, surprise, surprise. And just in case you are wondering, there isn't enough material to cover three weeks worth of V's vs. Z's. I actually considered throwing in a new possibility of a "Zampire" or a "Vombie" you know a hybrid of both. After all, if the Apocalypse were to happen(which is the beginning of these debates)and all that was left were Zombies and Vampires, wouldn't they start biting each other? It pains me deeply that I have actually thought of this.
Anyway, during another debate, pre-Zombie, pre-Vampire (one day earlier to be precise), the class was having a real debate over what a town should do concerning an oil spill on their shores. A) choose a company who has a 70% rate of successful clean up or B) a local company of the town's who claimed a 90% success rate but had no field experience. I couldn't see why the town couldn't use both. My thought was start with the 70% guys, who also had 20 years experience, and let the newbies practice during the other's clean up. Doing the practice in their own backyard would lead to a true success rate, and they could clean up the 30% left over. I don't know if this is uber-reasonable, it simply made the most sense to me.
Immediately the tirades began. Over and over again, I was put down for what I thought was a no-big-deal assessment. The thing about the kids in my English class, is the immaturity. They don't know how to debate. They think in terms of, 'this is what I think so this is the way it is, period'. After an hour of being put down (by this time, I was no longer speaking and was trying to find my happy-place somewhere inside my head) my teacher asked us to start a blog for our next class assignment. A what? The kids didn't know what a blog was. My teacher then asked who of us had a blog. Me and two other people raised our hands.
Skippy looked over at me and said, "Oh, so it's like a stay-at-home mom thing where you just sit around eating bonbons?"
I small, tini-tiny twig, deep inside the recesses of my recesses, snapped.
I spun around and barked, "What the hell are you talking about?!! I want to smack you! I want to smack in the face!"
Every person in the class shifted in their seats a few inches away from me. The room fell dead silent despite every mouth falling open.
Luckily, it was time for class to be over.
I called my husband, angry, spitting the ordeal over the phone.
"Where are you going now?" He asked.
"To See's Candies to buy myself a box of chocolates!" I was dead serious. Bonbons, no. Dark chocolate Truffles, absolutely!
He talked me down from that ledge and we met for lunch, instead.
Later that day, I told my kids what I had done and asked them what I should do in the future instead of threatening physical violence.
My seven-year old said I should "ask my teacher to move my desk away from that boy."
My always reading, very intellectual eleven-year old told me to, "take a deep breath, but be sure they don't see you because that will make you vulnerable."
It's awesome to see how your kids think you should act. And, realize the way I acted was really the most immature way possible. I guess I could have said, "Well my dad could beat up your dad", which would have been equivalent.
I still see good 'old Skip, although he doesn't look me in the eye. I admit I like that kind of power. I do regret I didn't handle it better but am relieved that I know my kids would have.