Fairiest is not a word
“Playing Scrabble with Fisch is a lot like my MRI” – pearatty
“Wait…you never told me…was that…fun?”- Dawn
Because poker, tv and pool are not enough, I am also developing quite the Scrabble habit.
Pretty much anyone that has crossed my threshold in the past month and a half has been met with the bright red box in my hands.
“Wanna play?”
I’ve even taken to bringing the game with me in my car. Have Scrabble will travel.
But my usual foil is Fisch — who is most famous for losing to a twelve year old boy in the Scrabble documentary “Word Wars.” Or he won, who knows, I saw that movie twice and he was so not in it.
The first time I played with him, there was much tears and thrashing and I’m not going to lie to you, the phrase “world of hurt,” came up once or twice.
But then I realized that I was silly to think that I could beat someone that has played competitive Scrabble without preparation, studying and tying both hands behind his back.
We started playing what Karol dubbed “affirmative action” Scrabble, where I had to reach 150 points before he reached 300. That worked quite well. I soundly beat him almost every time. Which, in retrospect, was probably not a sound strategy, since he promptly changed the race to 200-300.
Now my win rate is more like 65-70 percent, but I still hear the nightly “we have to change these races, you’re getting too good.”
Heh.
And so now we play for money.
My, if I recall correctly, 5-1 record on Wednesday was quite tasty.
Last night was one of those crazy running bad poker nights, where I think to myself…ok…I just have to beat Fisch 120 times tonight and I’ll be even.
But, twas not to be.
I don’t know how much you know about Scrabble, but you draw seven tiles and the goal is to make your highest scoring word.
Well, Fisch somehow drew the X and managed to make a seven letter word with it on a double word score: blitzed for 102 freaking points. Twice. The first time he played blintze. (Or was it blintz…grin) I was very sad. I was made even sadder when he managed to use the seven tiles he was given to make A NINE LETTER word. Ideations.
Are you FREAKING KIDDING ME?
He laughed and pointed and then with a straight face said “You know, Dawn, honestly, this game should be called on account of my greatness.”
And then I cried.
And paid him a dollar.
Now, considering I’ve been playing Scrabble nonstop for like two months (Seriously, Rick Blaine and Elsa, best people ever)
I bet you’re wondering why I’m only blogging about it now? Well, just wanted to let you know, that if I don’t post as often as I did, it’s because I’m memorizing seven letter words.
Lots of them.
Spelled with q and x and j.
Bastard.
February 2nd, 2007 at 1:49 pm
off topic:Linday is stealing your year: http://gawker.com/news/gossip-roundup/gossip-roundup-lindsay-lohan-is-taking-a-me-year-233516.php
February 2nd, 2007 at 2:43 pm
I can’t believe you’d lie in such a public forum…shameful….what’s our record again????
February 2nd, 2007 at 3:05 pm
records? who keeps records?
February 2nd, 2007 at 3:24 pm
hmmm…bastard is not a seven letter word spelled with q and x and j…
Are there any seven letter words with all three? jonquil is the first word that pops into my mind – sans the x though.
February 2nd, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Oh, I bet Fisch would manage to hook the x on the end and have me not challenge even though I know better.
July 11th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
[...] Pearatty definitely had me freaked out about it. I tossed and turned all night dreading it. So, I can’t say I was surprised that I overslept and had to take a cab into Manhattan to make sure I made it on time for the MRI. The test lab was way in the basement. I checked in with a cheery secretary and she escorted me to the elevator bank. “Just give these to the technician,’ she said handing me a clipboard. The technician was a black woman. Who smiled at me and told me to take a seat. She then handed me a seven page intake form and a pen. I’ve become adept these past few months with completing medical forms, but this one -complete with its 19 different ways of asking if you could be pregnant– was the most humorous of all. Have you ever been diagnosed with excess iron in the blood? No. Please identify all tatoos. Um. Has your eye been exposed to metal shavings? No. Do you work in a mine? I gave her back the form, she asked a few more questions verbally. No, for the 20th time and showed me to the waiting room. I was surrounded by signs ordering the removal of all earrings, watches, cellphone, credit cards, metrocards. Since my mother had gotten me earrings with screw on backs — not her first rodeo–I figured I should get started removing them from my ears. Dude, I can’t tell you how many times that “righty tighty/lefty loosie” rhyme has saved me. I put everything away and waited. Finally, after about 30 minutes, a different technician leads me to the machine itself. She runs through a few more questions…leading me to wonder what on earth they think goes on in the waiting room. She gives me a key and tells me to put my belongings in there. “So, what do you do?” she asks. “I’m a lawyer.” “No way. For real?” “Uh…yeah.” “You don’t look old enough to be a lawyer.” I smile. She tells me to lie flat on the machine and gives me headphones because “the machine gets loud.” I lie down on the pillow. “Ok, whatever you do…please…don’t move.” I instinctively want to move. Squirm. Readjust. Scratch. Something. It’s driving me crazy. I close my eyes. The machien starts whirring and I feel myself drifting off to sleep. When she comes back in — evidently 20 minutes have passed because she says the test is half over. She then gives me a shot of something in my wrist. I immediately flashback to the seven pages of forms and remember signing something which said I understood the risks associated with this injection. I signed it, assuming someone would explain the risks later. I was wrong. And now this liquid was flowing through my uninformed veins, but the lab was fully covered by my uninformed signature. Damn it. Maybe I’m not old enough to be a lawyer. Thankfully I drifted back to sleep. When it was all over, I decided that pearatty was crazy. The MRI machine is great. It’s like a huge magnetic sleep chamber. In fact, I’m going to get one for my house. I’ll be insured a goodnight’s sleep AND when someone tries to assassinate me with a knife or a gun, the magnetic field will disarm them. [...]