I have a brother-in-law named Steve Payne. He's a dentist. He's chill. He swivels his hips like Elvis while singing Johnny Cash's Walk the Line. And he wears whatever Lyric buys for him. From the day they got married, Steve has never bought one item of clothing for himself. If you ever meet him and think, "Oh, Steve looks really cute in that outfit" you can be guaranteed that Lyric purchased it for him. He probably didn't even know he needed a new shirt until he saw it hanging in his closet with the tags still on. That's how their relationship is. And it works. Yeah, he's cool. And everybody knows it--including Andy.
The other day I wanted to pick out Andy's outfit for church, which we often do for each other. Without much consideration I carelessly tossed each tie out of the way as if to say, "This needs to go. This one needs to go. This one's U-G-L-Y" and so on until there were only a couple options left on the hanger. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I actually said those words out loud. Anyways. Poor Andy started getting a little defensive about his cherished ties, and with a little resentment and slightly more hostility he blurted out, "You just want me to be like Steve." (I would put an exclamation mark there, but it wasn't quite that dramatic; however, the period doesn't do it justice) It took a second for his statement to register in my brain, but less than a second for me to start busting up.
And Andy says I'm competitive.
Do me a favor. Next time you see Andy, tell him he looks cute in his outfit.
