A friend of mine is in a long-distance relationship. They are both extremely athletic and competitive. A local gym holds a 1-2-3-4 challenge each year. You swim one mile, run two miles, bike three miles, and then do a series of four exercises: 100 pushups, 100 situps, 100 pullups, and 100 squats. It’s a charity event, people can compete in teams or individually, and a lot of people dress up.

My friend and his girlfriend often exercise “together” by video chatting from their home gyms while working out, using Bluetooth headsets to call while running, and sharing their Fitbit data, etc. She says she’ll do the challenge “with him.”

Come the day of the challenge, my friend is frustrated when he can’t get hold of her, but he decides to still go as hard as he can, hoping to be the first to finish/win the challenge.

He ends up coming second to someone dressed as a chicken.

It’s the end of the challenge, and most people are lying around exhausted, my friend included. He’s also super frustrated that he still can’t get a hold of his girlfriend and that not only did he lose, but he lost to a chicken.

He tries calling his girlfriend again, and when he can’t get hold of her, he turns to me and loudly asks, “Why isn’t she answering?!”

At this point, the chicken pulls her head off and answers, “Because I was busy kicking your a**!”

I’ve never seen someone go from exhausted and frustrated to elated so quickly. He jumps up and hugs her, spinning her round.

He then grabs her hand and pulls her out of the gym, and I hear her giggle and say, “Told you I would do the work out with you!”

(My boyfriend hits his head and concusses himself in mysterious circumstances. He was housesitting alone; later sleuthing led me to the conclusion that he fainted, which he’s prone to occasionally, and hit his lower forehead directly on the edge of a high counter. His nose is also broken. I sit in the emergency room with him as he’s given care. He’s lost his memory temporarily and every few minutes he starts wondering anew why he’s there.)

Boyfriend: “What’s… What’s happening? Where are we?”

Me: “At the emergency room at [Hospital], love. You hit your head and you have a concussion. We don’t know just how it happened.”

Boyfriend: “Oh… Wow. My nose hurts.”

Me: “Yeah, you broke your nose, as well.”

Boyfriend: *with a rueful grin* “Oh, no! My classic good looks!”

(Five minutes later he gets confused again, starts asking again, I explain the concussion, we don’t know what happened, the broken nose…)

Boyfriend: “Oh, no! My classic good looks!”

(This repeated, I kid you not, at least 25 times. We’ve now been married 12 years. How could I resist? He has a sense of humor AND classic good looks!)

(A customer and her boyfriend have gone back and forth in the store, laughing and joking. Suddenly, they both come up to the counter to my manager.)

Customer: “Excuse me. Have I been here before?”

Manager: “No, not that I know of.”

Customer: “Have you and I ever met?”

Manager: “No.”

Customer: *to my coworker and me* “What about you two?”

Us: “No.”

Customer: “Right. Now, tell me that a camo-themed birthday wouldn’t be cute for a girl. She could be a majorette.”

Boyfriend: “We ain’t having no majorette party.”

Customer: “If you can spell ‘majorette,’ then we won’t do it. Can you spell majorette?”

Boyfriend: *suddenly angry* “I can spell ‘kiss my a**’!” *storms out to be followed by his laughing girlfriend*

Manager: “Did that really just happen?”

(My boyfriend and I are both arachnophobic, but he tends to be the spider killer because I am much more afraid than he is. One day we are on a long drive when I notice a spider on the inside of the windshield and scream. He jumps and asks what’s wrong, and I tell him about the eight-legged monstrosity on the windshield. Both of us are frantic and unsure what to do when all of a sudden he reaches out and straight up punches the spider.)

Me: “My hero!”

Boyfriend: “You can’t scream like that; I thought a meteor was about to hit us!”

Me: “Really?! A meteor? That was your first guess?”

(My live-in boyfriend of two years is currently married to another woman, and has been so for seven years. She knows about me and vice versa, as we are all polyamorous. After a peaceful but distant period of time, they have decided to divorce, as they no longer have a romantic interest in each other. He tells me about this, obviously feeling down but resigned about the decision, and I offer as much emotional comfort as I’m able to, after which I make a somewhat callous comment.)

Boyfriend: “Now I’m just happy to be back home, so I can just sit on the couch and watch Last Week Tonight.”

(It’s a favourite of his. This is where I suddenly realise something important)

Me: “Oh, no… “

Boyfriend: “What’s wrong?”

Me: *full-on nervous giggling* “You’re either going to laugh or get mad at me.”

Boyfriend: *getting worried* “Okay, what is it?”

Me: “Can we still use your wife’s HBO account?”

(Luckily, he found it hilarious, and at least my total lack of tact led to a full-on belly laugh on an otherwise gloomy day!)