I pulled up beside Roscoe’s Malibu in the adjacent drive-in stall. Abandoned the Saturn and hopped into his passenger seat. My Strawberry Slush was waiting for me in the cup holder.

“Philosophical discussion,” I announced, casually. “You swap bodies with someone, Freaky Friday–style. You want to swap back. Screw waiting it out. You want to expedite the process. Tackle this shit with strategy and perspective. So: Does this have something to do with unfinished business or what?”

This wasn’t the first time we’d had a “philosophical discussion” about the Freaky Friday Effect. It was actually the third. The first time, we discussed how something like this could happen from a scientific or mythological perspective. This turned into a meandering conversation about astral projection. Easily the most useless conversation of my life. The second time, we discussed why something like this would happen. It usually had to do with moral life lessons. A little more effective. But it still wasn’t helping me swap back.

Now I was in manic brainstorming mode. I needed to figure this shit out.

Roscoe just assumed I really liked Freaky Friday. And he was always down for critical analysis of absurd theories.

“Unfinished… business?” Roscoe repeated. The gears were churning.

“Like, Jamie Lee Curtis and I failed to do something as ourselves? So now we need to do it as each other before the universe will let us swap back?”

Roscoe inhaled a long, contemplative slurp as he processed this. Swallowed.

“Isn’t that more of a ghost thing?” he said.

“Well, yeah, but…” I started to say, and then faded off.

He was right. It was totally a ghost thing.

“Yeah, it’s like the movie Ghost with Patrick Swayze,” said Roscoe.

I groaned.

“Swayze is murdered,” he continued, undeterred, “but he can’t pass on until he learns that his friend betrayed him, and he saves the love of his life, Demi Moore. Or something. Unfinished business.”

I had seen Ghost once with the Durdens. Principal Durden had somehow convinced Holden and me that it was a “horror movie.” And that’s how we ended up sitting through two hours of Patrick Swayze taking his shirt off, Demi Moore spinning clay pottery as some sort of sexual metaphor, and slow dances.

Principal Durden was in tears by the end, practically disemboweling a box of tissues. Horror movie, my ass.

“You can keep your mouth shut,” said Roscoe. “Ghost is a classic.”

“Whoa, hey! I didn’t even say anything!”

“You were gonna. I can see it in your eyes. Those judge-y little eyes of yours. I don’t wanna hear it. Ghost is a masterpiece.”

I laughed. Rolled my “judge-y little eyes.” Slurped my slushie.

Finally, I could contain myself no longer.

“Okay, come on,” I said. “A masterpiece?”

Roscoe shook his head and chuckled. “Don’t go there. Don’t even go there.”