In sixth grade, I was very good friends with a guy named Gabe. He came into our private school rather late in the game — most of us had been in classes together for years — but we became fast friends because he lived near me. I lived far outside the standard reach of our Montessori school, so living close to one of my classmates rarely happened.

Male and female friendship being what it is, we spent a lot of time teasing and harassing each other. Usually we were just teasing each other about our crushes (unpredictable as we were, I liked the “most popular” guy and he the “most popular” girl — not that that meant much at our tiny school) or fighting over what we were going to do that afternoon. As the girl, I had the upper hand – let’s face it, few guys ever pull out the same arsenal on their girl friends that they do on their guy friends. I didn’t like to abuse the power balance, so things generally ended with bartering (”Okay, fine, we can watch Cutthroat Island, but only if you walk to Bartell Drugs with me so I can get some Jujubees”). But when I was in a particularly feisty mood, I wasn’t afraid to use my nails (he caught me tying his shoes together in class once and I dug my nails into his knuckles so hard that if left a scar for quite awhile), or force him to sit through some god awful girlish movie or music video (and I rarely actually liked those kinds of things, I just used them when I wanted to annoy him).

Ultimately, though, Gabe knew he had one signature move he could rely on when he wanted to get back at me: Bone Thugs ‘n’ Harmony’s “Crossroads.” (more…)