About the Author: NUMBER 10!!

10. Her Competitiveness. This is difficult for a lot of people to wrap their heads around. It’s ok, it was for me too. Kelli seems, to a lot of people, like she would be about as competitive as a q-tip. The truth is, she’s about as competitive as Hines Ward. “Now wait a minute, Lane. Hines Ward plays dirty.” I hear what you’re saying, but the similarities are to substantial to ignore. I would argue that Ward is rarely dirty, but rather is a harder worker than any other wide receiver in the NFL. A safety or a D-back gets blocked down field by Hines and they immediately think he’s dirty when the same block would be clean on a kickoff return. People just aren’t used to receivers blocking...I’m sorry, what was I talking about? Oh right. Kelli’s competitiveness. When Kelli and I were dating I came to realize at some point that she was super competitive. I’m not sure when exactly it happened but I’m sure it was terrifying. I have likely suppressed the memory. I do remember telling my parents that she was competitive and them laughing at me. They didn’t believe it. Until she came over and played games with us. Now before you get the wrong idea, she’s not the kind of competitive that gets ticked when she looses and starts throwing stuff. She’s the kind of competitive that gets all hyped up and talks trash...at a volume that the neighbors can clearly hear. Oh and did I mention she’ll do anything to win? Yeah. She and my mom are a lot alike in that area. You call it “cheating”, they call it “not losing”. My friends in college found this out about Kelli during a game of catch phrase. This tends to be the game that brings out Kel’s competitive side more than any other. A lot of these friends had never met Kelli before but their first impressions were similar to most people’s: She’s sweet, kinda quiet, friendly, etc... But when that thing started beeping Kelli channeled her inner Hines Ward. One round in particular the Kelli had to explain “krispy-kreme”. It was already beeping fast when it got to her so she immediately started yelling, “UM, UM, UM, YA’LL DON’T KNOW MY MOMMA BUT SHE LOVES THESE!” Everyone stopped guessing and laughed. The buzzer went off and Kelli laughed too. Though I know that she was actually a little frustrated that no one got the answer. My friends still love to quote this 7 years later. I love it.