Deal......or No Deal?

So Ryan and I just finished watching the super spectacular extra special New Years Day edition with the extra fabulous bonus case 2009 of Deal or No Deal. This is always a stressful thing for us to watch together and I've always wondered why. It occurred to me tonight as we debated back and forth on what to do, why to do it and who would be our "3"if we were ever on the show, you know.....the three people you get to take "on stage" with you when you play. Usually friends, family member, co-worker, people who know you well, know the risks you do or don't take in your life, know what money would do or mean for you....and why.

So what you need to know about Ryan and I to begin with is that we are game show junkies. Really, contests in general. We were both athletes in school, we are very competitive in nature, Ryan has coached our children's teams, we have taught them sports that we can play together as well as interests of their own. We all golf, our dogs all have golf related names, I gave Ryan and Lizzie both tennis racquet's for Christmas as Lizzie wants to take tennis lessons and Ryan played (as was pretty good!) in high school. We LOVE sports. We love all aspects of sports, we love to WIN! As a matter of fact, we're all pretty poor sports if we lose. Never to our opponents, we give credit where credit is due, but we use that loss to improve upon ourselves! Ryan and I have won concert tickets on radio show contests, we have won gift certificates from story writing contests, we have won weekends away in work contests, I suppose you could say we have both won pretty prestigious awards in our jobs just because the challenge was set before us....we love contests! I qualified for the first round of Jeopardy a few years back and unfortunately mothers intuition took over and one of the girls had something the weekend I had to go to Chicago for the second round of try-outs........bummer.....we LOVE Jeopardy. We joke we are both filled with useless knowledge that's why we know all these completely random things we can answer!

So.....long winded way to get back to Deal or No Deal......Ryan is a huge risk taker. I on the other hand am the safe one. The older I get, the less I like change.....which is interesting considering I have been a consultant for multiple years and am constantly telling people how and why to change! So.....tonight, when the gal was offered 97,000.00 and had to choose three cases still...I said TAKE THE MONEY!!! Ryan however rationalized that there was no way she would wipe out all three of the large amounts remaining in the next three choices....something about the odds of that happening.....statistically speaking....blah, blah, blah!!! I was having no part of it. I rationalized that even if she didn't choose those numbers, that was a lot of cash and there was no need to be greedy. Ryan didn't feel it was greedy at that point, rather not the worst case scenario in the game. OMG.......this man can rationalize until I am blue in the face....he's so stinking smart it drives me nuts!!! So needless to say, she did not wipe out all three big numbers at that point, however, she did go on to turn down even larger amounts and continue to dwindle her chances of leaving with anything. Thus ensued a crazy game of Ryan rationalizing at what point she should stop and me just continually reminding him I was happy with the 97K I had already taken. Suffice to say, because she opened the proper combination of cases she won a guaranteed 10K, and then because she continued to the very last cases (turning down crazy amounts of money I might add) she won the super duper special addition 2009 case also which had a car inside and down to the wire her case indeed had 100K in it. So....she ended up total with cash a prizes of 155K.....and while that is 55K more than I had, my blood pressure was in better shape than hers, I am sure of it!!!

It made me again revisit just how truly polar opposites Ryan and I are. It's true what they say....opposites do attract, and I think that's a good thing. We compliment each other so well. I am conservative, probably to conservative at times, Ryan on the other hand is a risk taker....a calculated risk taker, full of probabilities and statistics, but a risk taker non the less. We are good for each other. I keep him safe and he keeps me adventurous. It's quite the balancing act and god knew just what he was doing when he gave us each other. Much like the deal or no deal, we bounce everything off of each other, work, family, crisis. He gets me out of my comfort zone, and I calm him down. I thank god each time I think about how different we are. What differences do you and your spouse share that compliment each other so well? Thank God for those today.