strike that

Homer Simpson, Nicole Kidman, Lance Armstrong (with Sheryl)

Lauren and Marc play a game called Who Got the Deal. It is one of those games that can be played during car trips or while waiting in line. It can be played with total strangers to incite laughter and spirited debate, but it is a different game entirely when played with a significant other, because it can be weirdly revealing and filled with the sort of Wrong that people are sometimes hesitant to show the world. My equivalent of this game is Sleep With / Live With / Cliff. But Who Got the Deal is a whole new realm of judgmental fun.

It works like this. (1) You think of a couple. A couple you know, a couple of stars, a couple you were part of. (2) You decide who got the deal.

That’s the whole game. It’s simple and brilliant and awful.

There are those couples where both people think the other person got the deal, and that’s hard to be around, and awful to be part of. And then there are the couples where both people think they got the deal, which is sometimes annoying to be around, but kind of great. And various other permutations. And there are people who want to be the one who got the deal, and people who want to be the one who’s responsible for the other person getting the deal. And so on.

And the nice thing about being around Lauren and Marc is that they pretty much consider themselves exempt from the game. They’re just a great match, and that’s it. And Lauren is training for another hundred-mile bike ride and Marc is building a car and at night they grill fish and drink Topo Chico and watch Entourage, or they meet their friends for Micheladas and chile relleno. And they have made this awesome life for themselves in Austin, and it’s really neat to see that about someone you knew in junior high.

As an adult, it’s rare to be able to spend so much time with a friend – particularly a friend who’s married. Now I’ve met the people whom La talks about, and I even know what she does for her job. Because honestly: do you actually know what most of your friends do all day? Like, the actual tasks they perform? (I’ve also learned that running your own company means you get to perform some of those tasks in a bathrobe.)

So that has been yet another super perk of this weird improvised summer. That and all the fun of Austin, where I got a little tan and had my first (and second) workouts ever with a personal trainer and saw a turtle while eating fried okra and figured out that I want to learn to swing dance. And then Lauren cut off my hair, cause that’s what happens when I’m starting to feel kickass again, and I got on a plane for Santa Fe.

posted by tortaluga @ 11:47 PM