Last Friday night Laura and I played a game called Apples to Apples with our friends Bill and Tracy. In this game, players take their rotational turn as judge, assessing which of the noun cards played by the other players is the closest match to the adjective card played by the judge. To win, you simply have to collect the most adjective cards as decided by the other players during their turns as judge.
In all, it’s a pretty random game with the whim of the judge counting for more than the actual quality of the matched cards.
At least this is what I thought until I played with Tracy. Arithmatic would dictate that, with three players competing before the judge in this mostly random game that any one player should win about one third of the time. And this rule held pretty steadfast when Laura and Bill were judges. But when Tracy was judge I won eight out of nine times. It was almost routine. And it was almost creepy. There was a clear mental connection. She loved my cards and got my logic. We had a connection.
At one point after a five in a row run, I looked over at Bill and jokingly teased, “Bill, your wife obviously gets me more than Laura does. Maybe we should wife-swap.”
Bill is sharp, and he’s witty. And without missing a beat he replied, “Goodness yes! Please! Take her!”