This is a story about something that happened to me ages ago when I was very young. I share it with you because I think it makes a good argument for electing female political leaders worldwide. And, perhaps more importantly, it makes me look like a victim (hopefully evoking your sympathy) and makes my two sisters look pretty cool. To tell this properly, I have to go back about five years to a small country school in southeast Iowa …

The year was 1992. A shy, innocent high school freshman, I was sitting backstage waiting for the next musical number during rehearsal for my school’s production of “The Music Man.” (As an extra, my role was negligible and consisted almost entirely of sitting backstage waiting for the next musical number.)

Anyway, I was sitting there when suddenly I heard a senior boy utter an offensive word. As I sat there, naively disregarding him and whatever disgusting thing he was talking about, I realized that he was in fact speaking this horrible word to me. Not only that, he was using this word to address me. I was mortified.

I don’t remember what he said to me next, but I shall always remember that moment as The Beginning. It was the beginning of the year of my humiliation. This senior boy (whom for our purposes today we shall call Felix) decided that his mission was to tease me unceasingly.

I seem to have the unfortunate quality of being highly teasable. Felix was not the first nor the last person to capitalize on that. But I must say that he was by far the most dedicated. Most people will tease you if a convenient situation presents itself, but they won’t walk three feet out of their way to give you a hard time. They are either too lazy or too unambitious to make a real go of it.

But Felix didn’t submit such a half-hearted effort. He appointed himself as my personal plague.

I ‘d had problems like this before, mild illnesses, if you will, but never before or since have I been so afflicted. He was intense and unrelenting.

His teasing took various forms which I will not detail for you. I will only tell of the favorite weapon in his arsenal. Whenever he saw me, he would greet me enthusiastically using that word as my nickname. In conversation he would constantly refer to me by that word. (Just so you know, I absolutely refuse to tell you the word that Felix used, so don’t even ask.)

This was by far the worst part because you can use different strategies to combat almost anything someone says to you unless they insist on calling you a name. All you can do is implore them to stop. And when that doesn’t work, well … you try to ignore them.

Maybe I should have reported Felix to the principal. The threat of some disciplinary action might’ve made him quit. If I’d had an older brother, I could’ve commissioned him to speak to Felix for me. Since I’m sure that any brother of mine would have been totally buff and imposing as well as intelligent and articulate, he could’ve persuaded Felix to lay off. But, as it was, I decided to wait it out. Felix graduated in the spring, and I thought the problem left with him.

Two years later I was forced to re-evaluate this assumption.

I was a junior and my sister Jodi was in her first year of college — the same college attended by Felix. Through common friends, they started hanging out together. A lot.

They carpooled to class together. Felix came over to my house to watch movies. He saw my oldest sister, Lisa, and my brother-in-law more than I did because he visited them with Jodi. He played basketball with my dad in our driveway, for cryin’ out loud!

It made me a little nervous. Here was this kid who had tormented me for a whole year, and now he was my sister’s new best friend! I lived in fear of an outbreak of embarrassing comments that marked my freshman year. But I needn’t have worried.

One night while Felix was out with my sisters, they confided in him that I had required psychological treatment to deal with the trauma he had inflicted on me. This is untrue, of course (the only treatment I’ve ever undergone was to earn extra credit in my Psych class last year), but they had Felix totally convinced. He felt horrible that his constant badgering had possibly caused irreversible psychological damage on my young mind.

My sisters eventually confessed their little lie, but the lesson apparently stuck. Felix has been nothing but cordial to me ever since.

This is why I say that women should be the leaders of our planet. Not because they are calculating and accomplish their goals in a devious manner. No, no, you cynics. I say this because my sisters were able to see the big picture.

Having Felix beat up or turning him in to the principal might’ve solved the problem, but only temporarily. Instead of trying to force him to stop, my sisters showed him why he should stop. This way was much more productive and beneficial to mankind.

You may say that men are also capable of such big-picture thinking. While that may be true, it doesn’t seem to be general working policy around this planet, does it? Next time you’re filling out a ballot, I just hope you’ll keep in mind my little story of a boy named Felix and the unspeakable word.

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Juli Hisel is an undeclared sophomore from Richland.