(Over) The Counter Culture Treatment

This is not to say we didn't have our moments before she decided to pick up her higher education right where she left it (somewhere on the outskirts of the 20th century), but having Selver back in the daily grind of the academia definitely came with a few unexpected perks.

"So, I've been thinking..."

There is a reason I befriended her, you know...

"Remember how everyone used to balk at us for reading Musashi, roleplaying Chronicles and learning Quenya back in the first grade?"

She's talking high school, people. Breathe.

For a split second I was tempted to point out that, some decade and a half down the road, the majority of people would still balk at us for the same reasons... but I wisely decided to keep my peace.

"Yes, and?"

"And Diablo, of course..."

(That would be Lamborghini, not Blizzard Entertainment - the latter doubled as anti-missile defense system several years later, though)

Her eyes took on the usual slightly feral gleam as she went to rattle off all of our cultural transgressions: "And Quasar emissions, that chess game in PE, your 'resident preacher' getup... And Cicero! Gods, the Cicero stunt was a blast!"

She was all but wiping tears of mirth by this point, wheres I was more inclined to gnash my teeth and glare.

"All right, I get it... we were nerds. Your point?"

And there it was. The eyebrow.

"I can't fucking believe she's using the eyebrow on ME!"

"Oh, come on!" Selver, ever the bitch, actually laughed at my facial expression (She did have 18 years to build up resistance to The Scowl Of Imminent Immolation, mind you!). "Both of your kids could double-click open a browser before they could use the potty, for Senna's sake!"

You don't want to know. Trust me.

"Fine..." I huffed. "We're still nerds. Will you get to the bloody point now?"

Finally satisfied with the boost she gave to my blood pressure levels, The-Best-Friend-From-Hell relented.

"I used to think I was just anti-social, and you were some kind of Japanese Elf warrior in your past life."

"Ha, ha..." I drawled. "I'd reschedule that literature exam if I were you - the whole 'Appearance Vs Reality' thing is messing with your brain."

"You're just jealous," she quipped; unfortunately, she did have a point.

"So tell me, oh Wise One..." If all else fails you can always fall back on snark with Selver, I learned quite a while ago. "What great truths has the Triple Goddess imparted on you while you were deconstructing doll houses?"

The wench simply ignored my jibe.

"Classical case of defensive mechanism. To our credit, we did work our way up through the levels quite efficiently."

I groaned.

"I'm well aware I was a neurotic teen, all right? Tell me something I don't know."

"You're still a neurotic teen, but that's rather beside the point," she shrugged. "Immersion in alternative cultures is a sign of immaturity..."

"Maturity is grossly overrated," I muttered.

"...and so is witticism, FYI."

She actually pronounced it that way: "ɛf-waɪ-aɪ". It was the perfect moment for me to return the eyebrow favour, and I did so with unabashed glee.

"Fine. You got me." Selver was always the more graceful loser of us two. "But the point I was trying to make is: we were always clever bastards, you and me."

"How so?" Now she really had my attention. It's not often I fail to follow her reasoning outside the slightly illogical fascination with browser games.

"Can you imagine the amount of both cash and recuperative years spent, had we taken the traditional, rehabilitative way to sanity?"

A brief cataloguing of our teenage years (the hyperinflation, the so-called 'Yugoslav Wars' and the subsequent economic and political sanctions, and the constant, deranging presence of the Socialist Party came to mind) finally had me nodding a heartfelt agreement with her rhetoric.



Indeed, the counter-culture treatment beats over-the-counter treatment any day.