A Family Tradition
Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 10:27PM When my parents and I are together we love to play Scrabble. Sometimes Mike joins us, and sometimes he doesn't. The last couple of visits we've had with them, though, the kids have gotten to bed late most nights, then there is stuff to clean-up, and our time for fun starts around 10:30 or 11:00 at night. We don't always feel like starting up a game of Scrabble when midnight is closing in on us. Actually, we might feel like starting, but the way we play, it's the finishing that gives us headaches.
The kids were on a crazy late schedule for their visit this time as well. It seemed like no matter what we did (early dinner prep, no baths, order pizza) it still got very late before they were settled in bed. Mom and I were determined to play Scrabble though. One night, she looked at me like,"Is it going to happen?!" I wasn't sure if she really wanted it to, but...we got the game down off of the bookshelf and she set it up.
We had two letter holders out and had drawn to see who went first; it was her.
You know, no one likes to start. Even with the double points, it's a stinkin' job. She had cruddy letters, too. And those darn double letter scores are always just out of reach, aren't they? It seems a universal thing that four-letter words are so easy to come up with, yet the five-letter words are not to be found amongst all the tiles on those little holders. Oh, the ease of the four-letter words...
We had each taken our first turn, and then my dad walked through the room. She turned and asked him,"Do you want to play?" She hadn't asked before, because he was watching a game. She told him we had each gone and that if he wanted to jump in, now was the time. He did join us. He pulled out his seven letters, and then he said,"Oh, I have two seven-letter words, but nowhere to put them!"
We felt so sorry for him.
You see, he puts down a seven-letter word just about every game he plays. It's infuriating and fascinating at the same time. He can pull out the tiles "e", "q", "t", "i", "i', "w", "n' and put them all down with the "q" on a triple letter, so that it counts twice (crossword puzzle-like), OR he will put down the seven-letter word so that it crosses over or begins on the triple word score. That sentence may or may not contain some hyperbole.
As soon as he said that he had nowhere to put his words, I looked at the board thinking surely there was a way he could incorporate the "s" that my mom had used in her word into his word. And don't think that he didn't do it! He did! On his first go! In a game where we foolishly asked him to play once we had already started!
He tried to act sheepish (sheepishly?), as if it weren't his fault at all...
but I don't think he felt that bad, really. What do you think?
But my mom...well, she felt just great about asking him to play! She was so glad that he joined our game...
My mom and I never quite caught up after this beginning...
He went on to kick our butts quite soundly.
But...after all, it's tradition. And we all love family traditions! Right?!
What are some of yours?
fun
Reader Comments (3)
wow that was a big ol hit right off the bat!!! HA! he looked sheepishlyish to me too! what a fun time, when my mom comes to visit we play banana grams, I think if our families got together we would have a blast haha! thanks for always being so sweet, Im so glad we met, todays comment changed my day, it always does, somehow Im not getting your recent posts, so I may have to try and re-follow you...but never fear I will figure it out!
I refuse to play Scrabble with people like that. If there's no chance for me to win, I don't want to play! We've recently introduced the kids to Mexican Train dominoes. It's the first game in a while that we can all enjoy.
I know how Ken has always had a passion for scrabble----gotta love him with those words he seems to pull out of his tail!! This made me smile! ;-)