Set on repeat

A few days ago, I was 12 again.

My friend and I found ourselves rifling through past iPods the size of hockey pucks and a countless number of Walkmans with missing battery doors. We were at his house, rummaging through boxes of old knick-knacks.

We traveled back to a time when the juice was Welch’s Grape instead of jungle-flavored and the hope of staying up past curfew to hang with “Ben,” your crush, depended on whether your friend’s “cool” mom would let you spend the night.

All for the sake of ridiculing each other’s music tastes from back in the day.
When you’re young, you don’t know what you are really into and you still think boys have cooties. I mean, at that age, the most influential album I owned was the “Space Jam” soundtrack. But, music plays a big part in reminiscing because of how it connects with so many other memories.

A few songs were staples of our middle school dance, such as “Take It to da House” by Trick Daddy, and if that doesn’t make you feel like you should be wearing an Old Navy tech vest, than I can’t imagine what would — except maybe another example of late ’90s hip-hop, such as “Make ’Em Say Uhh” by Master P.

And the dance DJ always loved to mix in a slow song right after that, such as “All My Life” by K-Ci and Jojo, so everyone could start shuffling awkwardly to leave enough space between your date for at least a third person to come between.

Then there are those songs we automatically wish we could forget. Mine is “Summer Girls” by LFO, the main reason being that the lyrics are nothing other than a run on observation that overuses the word “fly.” Nevertheless, I dragged my mom to the nearest Abercrombie & Fitch to see them on tour.

Then there are songs that are just right — the ones that feel like Dr. Pepper-flavored Lip Smackers,watching the TGIF lineup on ABC and waking up the next day to catch and waking up the next day to catch “Pepper Ann” on Disney’s “One Saturday Morning.” This song, for me, is “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls.

That was exactly who I thought I wanted to be back then — cool, independent, able to talk my mom into letting me get a belly button ring and platform sneakers.
I like to think most of that disappeared with time.

If I’ve learned anything from our promenade down memory lane, it’s that the older you get, the more these memories mean to you.

If I ever get a little fuzzy on the details, I have the perfect playlist to bring it all back and a friend to laugh with about it.