101 facebook friends, to some, might be considered a minuscule amount. However, I can at least humbly state that I know, care for, and have love for 98% of my online friends and family, at least enough to take the time to respond, and like (thumbs up) what they post. If I have never spent any actual time with you, or it takes me longer than a minute to even recall who you are, then you might as well find someone else to up your friend count, or advance you in your mafia wars. (Seriously, we had science together sophomore year, we never once spoke, yet that qualifies us as friends?) I am picky and choosy because I don't need 548 different random people sharing with me on a daily basis, where they just had coffee, or walked their dogs.
I must admit, the recent request that I've received has completely thrown me for a loop. His name, Michael Waldo, well, that's what I used to call him long ago. I remember him as the boy whose heart I broke, along with half of his internal organs. We grew up on the same suburban cul-de-sac, yet we lived in completely different worlds. He, a goody-goody know-it-all, from a large Mormon family. Me, not so much, but by our thirteenth year of childhood, his overly repressed prepubescent urges found my troublesome, tomboyish, no nonsense attitude quite intriguing.
I remember many a time, Michael standing in my front yard, hollering up to my second story bedroom window, with no shame and nothing to lose, "will you go with me?" (That's how you asked someone to be your girlfriend back in the 80's.) At the time, I found it absolutely embarrassing and a threat to my reputation, and when he attempted his desperate plea, I would normally turn my ghetto blaster up really loud and just ignore him. Looking back, the fact that I never easily replied with a simple "no thank you" probably means, in my now grown up analytical mind, that in some distorted sense, maybe part of me enjoyed his adolescent passion for my unobtainable love.
That all came to rest one balmy summer break afternoon. I recall it well, me and my neighborhood crew, lying on beach towels in our tankinis atop a smoldering tar driveway, covered in baby oil. (Skin cancer didn't exist yet.) Michael ever so bravely rides up on his Huffy BMX, and carelessly shouts out for all to hear, that he loves me, and that's all it took for my somewhat chard, flat chested body to finally reach the breaking point. I found myself sprinting barefoot after him in an all out frenzy, while he rode away on his bike. Unfortunately for him, he went cruising full speed down the dead end side of the street, and had nowhere to go back around the horn to escape my wrath. I caught up with him, and shoved him over the handle bars of his bike, and the violent result, extreme enough to not even be featured on Max X.
Michael ended up in the hospital for nearly a week with internal bleeding and injuries. I learned so from his many brothers, who, by the way, were so wholesome, they didn't even retaliate. Well, except for when they would make it more than obvious by always targeting me first while playing kick the can, or any other of the neighborhood night games, for the rest of that summer. A small price to pay for the damage I ensued.
Fortunately for me, the Waldo family moved shortly after the accident, I mean incident, and this friend request is the first that I have heard from him since. I'm left wondering what he could possibly want from me. An apology perhaps, revenge, or something broken? Though with all that has happened, I conclude that he at least deserves a simple click on accept.
