ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

My boyfriend purchased Grand Theft Auto 4 on Sunday and since then, I have been listening to/watching him play this game. Most of the time, I do not find it interesting to watch people play video games, but as I sat in the other room sewing on Sunday I realized that this game is extremely interesting.

First of all, it features crazy Russians (or Ukranians or whatever, all I know is they sound Russian and I heard one of them complaining about Albanians). Basically, the game is all about going around and doing interesting crimes and being Russian. And stealing cars from other people.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to avoid the cops if you obeyed traffic laws?” I asked as he skidded down a sidewalk and ran his stolen car over a mailbox.

“No, they don’t really pull you over in this game,” he explained. “It would take too long to get anywhere if you obeyed the law, and the game would basically scream to a halt and be really boring.”

“Really?” I asked. “What if you hit someone with your car, though? You can get in trouble for that, right?”

“Only if you do it in front of a cop. And even then, they’re pretty corrupt. They just take your gun and your money.”

He picked his girlfriend up at her apartment. Take Michelle somewhere nice, the game suggested. “Take her to that SPAGHETTI place!” I insisted. I had seen this somewhere in the game.

He took her to a Burger King type place instead. She appeared to have no problem with this, claiming that it reminded her of when she was a kid. “What happens if you do bad stuff in front of your girlfriend? What does she say?” I asked.

“Nothing usually,” he said, swerving the car around to the left lane while running a light. After plowing through a row of newspaper boxes and telephone poles, she still had not commented on his driving. He dropped her off at her place, then stole a motorcycle. “See?” he said. “I can do wheelies!” He ran into a concrete barrier and was thrown half a block through the air.

“If someone was driving like you with me in the car,” I said, “I would ask them to let me out of the car.”

“Honey,” he said. “Everybody drives like this in Liberty City.”