Oprah and I have long played the Best Game Ever: ‘Would You Be My Friend IF?’

For example:

• Would you be my friend if I had one reaaaaaalllly long arm, and one really short one?
• Would you be my friend if I, on occasion (but by no foreseeable pattern or frequency), started to scream slurs in public, then apologize profusely, and genuinely, to all witnesses?
• Would you be my friend if my living room were a full-blown Hasselhoff shrine?
• Would you be my friend if I ate a dirty Skittle off of a bowling alley floor?
• Would you be my friend if I ripped your glasses off of your face (while you were in an awkward middle school phase, no less), thus damaging the frames and injuring your eyesight and your eyebrow-heavy appearance even further, in immeasurable ways?

Note the 1st: Oprah’s answer is usually ‘No,’ and yet I still love her. Who’s whose bitch?

Note the 2nd: I taught this game to one of my nephews, Little Giraffe (11), and he’s reported that he’s passed it on to some of his friends. Success.

Pitch one at me!