#can't skip

The shuffle button; both an inconvenience and a blessing at times. We've rifled through our entire library and have found those few songs that simply cannot be overlooked. So when your shuffle button fails you, try giving these songs a listen:

Jenny - WALK THE MOON. A bass line that packs a punch as soon as it starts.

Inner Ninja - Classified ft. David Myles. Not your average rap song; plus it's got a simple beat to make a catchy rhythm.

It's Time - Imagine Dragons. The claps and snaps make for an incredible intro.

My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light 'Em Up) - Fall Out Boy. Even with it's increasing popularity, this infectious song never gets old.

Desperate Measures - Marianas Trench. You can always count on Marianas Trench to create awesome guitar riffs.

Parachute - Ingrid Michaelson. A little softer and cuter than the others, but impossible to skip all the same. 

Dark Blue - Jack's Mannequin. To this day, we've never found anyone that can master the piano quite like Andrew MacMahon.

Teeth - Lady Gaga. One of her lesser known songs, and a little raunchy.

Misery - The Maine. It's a little bit more sad, but the guitar and the second chorus make it unforgettable. 

Disclaimer: All statements made are entirely true, and none were twisted nor changed for the 'juiciness' of this writing piece. Many years ago, like all kids the age of 5 and below, there was a girl that wanted to learn how to skip ropes. She used to see her neighbour's daughters that were 8 to 10 years older than her, skip every day and she sat afar watching them. She really liked those girls, mainly because their hair fell in place, they had more dolls, they knew more things than I did, and they knew how to magically skip at such a speed that as if the rope was invisible.

Usually, it was just her and her brother in the family. Her brother went off with the boys in the building, being rowdy and playing catch, while she sat in her room, playing with dolls. There weren't many girls of her age in the building and sending her daughter to someone's house wasn't something the mother would have liked. In Makkah, that wasn't the norm either and even if it was, the mother was protective.

The girl's mother would ask her to go play with the neighbour's daughters, as it was the evening and the girls would have woken up to play outside their apartment in the hall. The teenage girls were good examples for her daughter, she thought, and she always liked them for being so courteous at parties and weekly gatherings to the adults.

So, she did what her mother advised her to. She ran up the few flights of stairs to see them skipping ropes. They were in pretty frocks, competing against each other, laughing at the same time when any of them messed up in their skipping marathons. Their skipping ropes were so pretty, stripes of purple, pink and red. The girl later realized in her life that purple was actually her favorite color.

"Oh hello, Fatima," said one of the sisters, the nicer one, as the girl tried to slowly walk as properly as she could near them, but not too close. She didn't want to seem stupid to them.

"Hi, Baji," the girl said. "That is so cool." The sister smiled back, while the other just ignored away. She began talking to the other sister as if the girl wasn't even there.

The girl sat on the stairs of the apartment, while the girls played against each other. She put one of her arms between her legs and curled her back, placing one hand on the marble stairs she sat on. They were dusty so using her fingers, she started making the inifinity sign, only because there was no end to it and her finger wouldn't need to move to make a continuous, smooth thing of dust. But she didn't know what the infinity sign was, she just thought it was cool. She lifted her head when the girls started whispering amongst themselves.

The not-so-nice one asked the girl to show them if she could skip. The girl said she didn't, but the not-so-nice neighbour's daughter insisted that she should try and if she didn't know how to skip, the sisters would teach her. With that said, the girl felt some lightness in her heart. She was finally being recoginzed as someone by these girls, especially this one.

The girl wasn't so tall. At less than 5 years, she was half the size of the teenage girls. She didn't know you could pull the ends of the rope together and make it shorter. She took the pretty rope happily and tried to do what they did. The nicer one even tried to show, but the other sister told her, "Let's just watch." They watched the girl struggle, and fifteen minutes into it, the girl fell smack on the face. She scraped her knees, but thank God, she was born with chubby cheeks.

As she tried getting up, she watched the not-so-nice one laugh hysterically. Her voice echoed in the apartment building. The other sister tried to help the girl up, but she was too scared at disppointing her older sister by helping the girl.

The girl didn't cry. There was too much of the deafening noise already. She dropped the skipping ropes on the ground and ran down the stairs, just one floor though. She sat on the corner and rubbed the dust off her knees and her face and her pink t-shirt. Then she ran down again, rang the bell to her door, and her mother came to get her. "Oh, you're done already, darling? Did you have a nice time, dear?," asked the mother.

"Yes, Ammi," she said, walking back to her dolls, the ones that thankfully didn't know how to laugh.

"See, I told you, those girls are so nice. They'll always be nice to you," the mother replied, as she walked back to the kitchen. The girl remained quiet, stroking her doll's hair.

Today, I saw this blue skipping rope lying on my bed. I got it from a motivational event just last week. It reminded me of the girl who couldn't skip ropes. She still can't.   She also thinks the word 'nice' doesn't really mean anything.