Scrabble Sore Loser

At one point in my life, right during my upper years in high school and lower years in college, I was good at Scrabble. I'd always played against my mom, and while she used to consistently defeat me, I was improving. Then I hit those years and started defeating her as often as she defeated me. Yes, those were the days of innocent Scrabble -- when folks could just put down words and be happy for each other, and then go sit on the back porch and sip lemonade, and so on and so forth.

Then I played my college roommate Matt during my senior year of college. He played the meanest game of Scrabble I had ever seen. He played with strategy! He was blocking me and using my word placement as a way to rack up more points than I thought possible. Matt destroyed me by several hundred points. I was wounded, my Scrabble innocence ripped away from me. How could anyone play so maliciously and use word placement strategy and spend their free time reading the Scrabble Players' Dictionary?

But we played a few more times, and I slowly learned his way of Scrabble destruction. I still never beat him, but I was now only losing by around one hundreds points rather than several hundred.

When I went home one weekend, my mom and I played Scrabble again. I destroyed her. She seemed wounded. Who was this evil Scrabble strategist that had replaced her daughter? This was not the innocent and loving Scrabble player she had sent off to college several years back. No, I was now tainted.

And for several years now, I have been longing for a return to the Scrabble naiveity I once had with my mom. I have not won a game of Scrabble in at least five years. This is because my wife is a Scrabble Destroyer, and so are most of my friends who enjoy Scrabble.

I am a sore loser, too. I hate losing. Well, I don't mind losing a game or two here and there, you know - like my mom and I used to do. But I hate being constantly crushed at one game. Sure, I'll hold up the other games I do very well at -- "Yeah, you beat me at this, but I would clean your clock at AIR HOCKEY, BABY!!" or "Wait til we play TABOO, sweety, I'll DESTROY YOU!!" -- but those games just don't make me feel better about being a Scrabble Loser.

So, if anyone knows of a good Scrabble school or tutorial, pass it my way. It may be time for me to suck it up and do some Scrabble cross-training.