50,000 Words!!! Yay!!! Oh, wait….

In my bloggy absence over the past couple of months, between recuperating from my near-death experience and changing jobs, I have cranked out about 50,000 words. Oh, no – not a novel or anything like that. Not an anthology of beautiful short stories nor a load of lyric loveliness.

No, by my rough estimate this morning – I have put together 50,000 words. Playing Scrabble on-line. And not that shabby imitation “Words with Friends” crap. Real(?) by-God virtual Scrabble.

50,000 words – One stinkin’ word at a time. I’m in deep, kids. Really deep.

In real life (you remember real life, don’t you?) very few people want to play Scrabble with me. I am insufferable. I must win, I play defensively, and know a lot of obscure words. Imagine my pure joy when I discovered the Scrabble app for my Android tablet. An endless supply of unwitting victims. I could play anonymously, so that no one would know it was me and avoid my invitations to a letter-tile smackdown. I grinned and rubbed my hands together in evil anticipation of the word whuppin’s I was about to lay down. And lay down I did. And did. And did. And without any freakin’ Scrabble Cheat apps, thank you very much. (Yes, Player 2218 I am talking to YOU).

First thing in the morning, with the sickly glow of the tablet illuminating my puffy eyes, I checked to see whom I was currently flogging with my little virtual wooden-letter weapons. Before bed – nay, even in bed – my bloodshot eyes checked to make sure that I wasn’t missing a turn to play a carefully-crafted pure-genius move that would propel me to a 200 point lead against some poor sucker (12 points). BwaHaHaHaHaaaaaaaaaaa.

Of course, I often encountered mental midgets like Player 3233 whose best word was “turds” or Player 7825 who used both the blank tiles for the letter K to spell “dick” twice in the same game. Or Player 1999 who joined both “anus” AND “vagina” on a double word score (Brilliant!!). I have screenshots of these offerings, but WP isn’t letting me upload this morning. You’ll just have to trust me on this.

And then…and then. I saw HIM. There on the bottom of the playing board.
 

Teacher. He looked like Alex Trebek, if Alex Trebek’s face was a wooden letter tile. He knew words – rich, high score, valuable words. He smiled sweetly and offered encouragement whenever I made a brilliant play. Like a giddy schoolgirl with a crush on her male middle-school Algebra I teacher, I lived for his praise. I was on a roll! I could not get enough of my new square-jawed lover. In addition to trouncing my feeble-minded competitors (not you, Player 3345, you are da bomb!), I resumed showering and changed into clean pajamas before ever opening that app again. I might have even applied lip gloss. When I was properly groomed and primped (18 points), I had only to click on his face to see my new main squeeze (45 points).

And as was inevitable (31 points) I disappointed my new paramour (18 points) soon enough. I played the word rivet (12 points). He frowned. “Hmmmm, let me show you what you missed” he said.

He played “erective” on the board (92 points). Wait, wait a darned minute. Did he just raise his eyebrow? What the?…what?

I was crushed. Within days Teacher had disapproved of many of my word offerings – showing me missed opportunities to play the words siemens, augite, sarkier, fique, kraters, hazan, flinkite, nutant, feod, flanerie, groanful, uranitic, kuias, miaoued, poovy, scungy, braii, gju, and arctoid (88 points).

It was over between us. Fique gju in your scungy feod, Teacher. You can kuias my poovy augite. Even though he remained at the bottom of the playing board, I never again tapped his wooden face in a quest for his approval.

I estimate (you have to sign in with your real name to get real stats) that I won 98% of the games I played (Damn you, lorrencowen – I’ll beat you yet!). I also estimate that I had as many as 150 games active at one time (the app only shows the 25 most recent games played). As of this morning I am down to 8 games and as soon was the opponents either succomb (30 points) or forfeit (13 points) I am done (5 points). Seriously (13 points). I mean it (2 points).