February 2008

If another word came out of his smart mouth I was going to take my math book and whack him. He could be so irritating, often times living up to his Irish name, Ryan, which meant “Little King”. Well, he had the “little” part down, anyway. He was as scrawny as he was childish. The “king” part was true only in his mind. He always had to be right, always had to show me up, always had to try his hardest to gain a rise outta me.

And it always worked.

If there was one thing that irritated me more than he did, it was me. He always brought out my inability to shut up whenever a challenge came along. He’d poke at all the right buttons, and instead of being impervious to his pettiness, it’d just sink right into me like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Minus the “woo-hooing” afterwards.

Ryan took the pencil out from between his teeth and tapped it against my scrap paper, sprinkling spit on my answers as if he were the Bullsh*t Fairy waving his bossy-pants wand as he proceeded to tell me why I was wrong. “Your answer came out right, but you were only half right. Because when I didn’t believe you, you didn’t argue with me to prove your point. You started to, but then you agreed with me.”

“I allowed you to think you were right, because I have a test early Monday morning and wanted to shut you up. What’s the fastest way to do that? Say, ‘Okay, Ryan’ and be done with it. That does not mean I agreed with you.” I pursed my lips and re-read the next word problem for the fourth time.

“But if you knew you were right, you would’ve tried harder to prove your point.” He sat back smugly, crossing his arms. The fact that he knew he was irritating me made his smile bigger and my patience smaller.

“…No…I just felt that there were more important problems to study and you would eventually discover I was right when you checked your work. Why should I waste my breath telling you you’re wrong, when it’s so much more fascinating to watch your face when you figure it out for yourself?” I rolled my scrap paper into a ball and threw it at his head. It bounced right off and onto the floor, like a basketball against an NBA backboard, which was just as hard as his head and equally inflated with hot air.

“I swear. You two are like an old married couple. Just date already.” We were so wrapped up in the argument that neither of us noticed David come into the room, with Matt and Dan following close behind.

“Date? Each other? Ha! There’s a thought,” I said, gesturing toward Ryan, and rolling my eyes. “I wanna smack the crap outta him now, when he’s merely an annoying acquaintance.”

“Yeah, but you love me anyways.” Ryan gave his best attempt at an angelic smile, batting his big ocean-blue eyes at me like a little Chihuahua.

“I have to love you. Otherwise I wouldn’t stand a chance of passing algebra.”

He feigned a hurt look and grabbed his non-existent man boobs. “Oh, that hurt…right here. Wait, wait…I might shed a tear, hold on…nope, must be gas”. He proceeded to show off his manly essence by letting one rip, earning a high-five along with a congratulatory “Niiice!” from David.

“Ugh.” Disgusted, I left them to their jokes that only the male species found humorous, and retreated to my apartment to wait for the more sensible members of our group to show: the females.

 We’re just a group of poor college kids with barely any direction, trying to survive in co-ed student housing: Ryan, Dan, Matt, and David share one shabby apartment, and Tasha, Christina, Tiffany and I share the slightly prettier apartment across the hall. After spending two years at a community college and living with our parents, we reveled in the freedom that came with transferring to a university, miles away in Orlando: staying up late, driving crappy cars that broke down every few miles, and eating gourmet meals a la Easy Mac. Then again, we wouldn’t be college kids if we weren’t starving.

Ah, the good life.

Our weeks were spent in serious study mode, unless you count the study groups we liked to throw, which typically turned into rowdy dance parties. But the weekends were a different story. We’ve spent many a Friday and Saturday night locked in our own version of “Battle of the Sexes.” The boys get all cocky and start feigning independence, claiming we girls need them more than they need us. We girls usually respond by banning together and going window shopping, all the while keeping up our Man-Hating Talk, until we get distracted by a sale. By Sunday, however, the boys can usually be found running back to us, begging for forgiveness. Whether it’s from actual guilt at their meanness towards us “fragile girls”…ha…or their lack of sleep from playing cards all night at Denny’s made them delusional, we never knew. Nor did we care. We just liked it.

It seemed that this weekend would be no different. Things were beginning friendly enough so far, but pretty soon the sexes would ban together and plan for battle. I could feel trouble brewing in the air, and it wasn’t because the boys happened to be gathered together in one room after taco night at Tijuana Flats. I walked into the living room and found Tiffany rummaging through the fridge while Christina was wrestling with our temperamental blender, pressing hard on the button as she simultaneously ducked down for cover.

“Chrissy, keep your hand on the – aah!” Tiff and I yelled, clasping our hands over our heads as the top spun off, yogurt plastering the ceiling and strawberry chunks zinging around the room in a low-calorie air raid.

“Oops…” squeaked a small voice from behind the counter.

“It’s…it’s all good,” I said. “We’ll just serve something less dangerous. Like pop-tarts.”

“I don’t think we should put her in charge of something that pops, sparks, or basically anything electrical.” Tiff said, rolling her eyes as Christina poked her in the arm.

I plopped down on the couch and Tiff joined me a few seconds later, leaving Christina to mop up the rest of the fruity massacre with a quilted wet wipe.

“How’s the studying going?” Tiff asked.

The look I gave her said enough.

“Well, you sure sounded like you enjoyed it. I could hear the yelling from our kitchen. I was about to get the fire hose. If it were me, I would’ve just hauled off and smacked him.”

“Don’t think the thought didn’t enter my mind. But every time I do, he blocks me with that bony arm of his and I have bruises on my hand for a week.”

“Tragic.”

“Tell me about it. And anyways, the rest of the boys are over there, and Tasha will be home soon, so we had to quit and get ready for our movie night. You get the rest of the snacks?”

“Sure did. Chips, strawberry cheesecake, and extra dip in case Dan still doesn’t understand the concept of ‘sharing.’”

“You’d think after the PowerPoint presentation and the two interventions, he’d get it by now.”

“You would think, but after last year’s fateful Super Bowl, we can’t be too careful. Anyway, the food’s all over there on the counter.”

I got up to help her pour out the dip just as Tasha burst through the door.

“What’s up guys? Are you ready for a night of nothing but Channing Tatum? He’s sooo yummilicious!” She gushed.

“She’s The Man? Again? We just saw that twice last weekend. Not quite sure how we managed it, but we did.” I rolled my eyes and popped a chip into my mouth.

“Not just She’s The Man. We’ve got Step Up, too. And besides, watching Channing Tatum with his shirt off close to three times in a row will be a nice change next to the same sweaty guys we see every day.”

She had a point.

“Alright, let’s take all our crap and set everything up in the living room. Oh, and hide the cheesecake. If Ryan knows it’s here it’ll be gone before anyone else has a chance at it.” I slipped the goods back into the refrigerator, and hid it behind a single head of lettuce, our one attempt at a healthy diet. He’d never look there. Christina rummaged around in the cabinet for a bowl to dump the chips in while Tasha set up the DVD player, and Tiffany went in search of the playing cards. Just then, the door burst open and the boys walked in, wearing their jackets.

“Where do you think you guys are going?” Christina tried her best to sound authoritative.

“We’re going to go see Cloverfield; you guys can come if you want.” David said. We girls just stared at them.

“You’re serious?”

“What?” Ryan looked genuinely clueless. What else is new?

“Um…hello.” I gestured at the pile of movies and snacks on the coffee table that, at the moment, was under intense scrutiny from my cat, Jack. “You could have asked us first! We went to all this trouble to have a decent party with you guys tonight.”

“That stuff will still be here when we get back. Do you guys wanna go or not?” Ryan looked at us, questioning.

“Um…excuse me, but some of us don’t have a job just yet and therefore have no money!” Tasha piped up.

“Don’t worry, we’ll cover you if you pay us back.” David offered, as he headed for the door.

Tasha and I exchanged a look. “No thanks, I’d feel really uncomfortable knowing I have to pay you back. It’d be hanging over my head every time I saw you.” She said.

David sighed. “Well, if you don’t want us to go, we won’t.”

“You just saw that movie last night!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah, but they didn’t,” he said, gesturing toward the boys. “I was telling them about it, and now they really wanna see it.”

“Gee, thanks for that.” I said.

“C’mon, we want you guys to come, too,” Matt said, putting his hand on Tiffany’s arm.

I looked at my girls for help.

“I wouldn’t mind seeing it, but I also wanna watch our own movies. Plus, we went to all this trouble to get everything ready,” Tiffany reasoned.

“I think you guys need to just stay here and watch the movie with us ‘cause that was what you said you’d do in the first place, and Tiffany’s right, we did go to a lot of trouble.” Christina chimed in, as more of a warning than a request.

I felt my annoyance rising as my eyes darted from girl to girl, and the same thought was apparent on all of our faces. How dare they do this to us? They were so inconsiderate, so incredibly oblivious.

Then, surprisingly, my annoyance dissipated and was replaced with a curious, bubbling excitement. I thought about it for half a second longer before I calmly put my two-cents in.

“No, you know what, go ahead,” I said, placing my hands on my hips and pursing my lips.

“What?” Ryan asked suspiciously.

“Just what I said. Go see your movie.”

“Do you mean that or is this one of those girl tricks you guys do where you’ll pretend to be okay with something and then make us pay for it later?”

“No, we’re fine. Really. Go have fun.” I looked at my girls for backup.

“Yeah, we’ll be cool here without you guys.” Tasha joined.

“Um, yeah.” Christina joined.

“Are you sure? Now I feel bad.” Dan scratched his head and looked over at the guys for help.

“No man! Don’t look them in the eye! Don’t give in, they’re giving us the go-ahead, let’s get out while we still can!” David laughed and started out the door trying to tug Dan behind him.

I clenched my teeth and smiled straight at Ryan. “Go. We’ll be fine.”

He looked me straight in the eye for another minute before shrugging his shoulders and walking to the front door. “Alright, fine. But you can’t say we were being mean or stupid or anything else, because we offered. Remember that,” he said, pointing his finger at me and refusing to break eye contact.

“Oh no, we’d never think of that. You boys go have fun; we’ll be just fine here. Alone.” I said, a slow smile spreading across my face.

“Cool.” Ryan said, turning on his heel and joining the rest of the guys in the hallway. And with that, our four boys walked out on us, slamming the front door behind them.

***

“Can you believe them?” Tiffany huffed, as she plopped backward beside me onto my bed.

“Now what are we gonna do?” Tasha asked from underneath my pillow, sprawled facedown next to me on the other side.

“I guess we can just try doing what we told them we were going to do in the first place, and watch one of our movies.” Christina sat on the floor with her feet tucked under her, looking as confused as the rest of us, as we contemplated our predicament.

I looked around at my girls: Christina sat chewing her fingernails nervously; Tasha had emerged and now had her head in her hands, drumming her fingers anxiously against her cheeks; and Tiffany just lay there, tapping her finger against her lips, thoughtfully. I realized they were all feeling just as antsy as I was, and in that moment, I made a snap decision. “Well, we know we’re not staying here and letting them have all the fun.” I stood up and grabbed my purse.

“Alright. What do you suggest we do, then?” Tasha asked, standing up.

“I dunno, we’ll think of something on the way. Whatever we do, we definitely aren’t going to be waiting around for them when they get back.” I said, heading to the living room.

“Already on it,” Tiffany grinned as she sprinted for my keys, hanging on the hook by the door. We poured out of the apartment; barely able to keep from tumbling down the stairs in our rush to greet the night and the excitements it had in store for us.