English paper
NONFICTION
To S c r a t c h , C l a u u , or G r o p e C l u m s i l L / | o r F r a r t i c a 11 Ly) j>
.ROXANEGAY
This is the definition of the word "scrabble" according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
In all seriousness. Scrabble was invented by a man named Alfred Mosher Butts.
My third tournament started with a brutal game
where 1 lost by more than two hundred points.
1 was the fifth seed and feeling confident—too
confident, really. "We Are The Champions" may have been on an infinite loop in
my head. And yet. It was also early on a Saturday morning. 1 am not a morning
person. Before the tournament started, people milled around the hotel meeting
room chatting idly about the heat, what we had done since the last time many
of us had seen each other (the previous tournament in Illinois), and some of the
more amazing plays we had made recently.
Scrabble /• players love to talk, at length, with some repetition, about their
vocabulary triumphs.
There were twenty-one of us with various levels of ability but really, if you're
playing this game at the competitive level, you generally have some skill and can
be a contender. The more experienced players, the Dragos to my Rocky, studied
word lists and appeared intensely focused on something the rest of us couldn't
see. Many wore fanny packs without irony—serious fanny packs bulging vwth
mystery. As 1 waited for the tournament to begin, 1 studied the table of game-
related accessories—books, a travel set, a towel, ^ , . , , ,., Scrabble tournaments are a lot like soccer tour-
a deluxe board, and some milled French soaps naments for four-year-olds in that, often times,
clearly taken from someone's c l o s e t - a l l for ^" '̂̂ ""^ ̂ °'' *^°"^""^^ """'^ something,
drawings to be held later in the day. ->
„ . „ , ^ At nine o'clock, sharp, the tournament direc- Officially rated tournaments are run by NASPA- approved tournament directors, NASPA is the tor,<- Tom, began making a n n o u n c e m e n t s , one North American Scrabble Players Association. ^^ ^^.^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^ ^ ^ ^^^ ^ j ^ ^ .^^^ Tournament directors are generally encyclo- pedic in their knowledge of Scrabble and can earlier. The t o u r n a m e n t was going to go on, he easily clarify any confusion about the rules or negotiate disputes that arise during a tourna- ment. Disputes, they arise.
NINTH LETTER
said. It was an awkward, touching moment because grief is so personal and this
man was clearly grieving. The room was silent. It was difficult to know what to
do. He announced that the first pairings would be posted in a few minutes so
we waited, quietly until the pairings were posted around the room. Everyone
hovered around the sheet of paper, quickly writing down the names of their first
two opponents. 1 sat across from my first challenger. She was seeded nineteenth.
My confidence swelled vulgarly. She stared at me, smug, almost imperious. 1
felt an uncomfortable chill. We determined she This is how serious competitive Scrabble is—
would go first. She drew her seven tiles. 1 started there is a national championship, held annu- her time and fixed her with a hard stare as she ""
tournament was held in 1978. There are also began shuffling the seven plastic squares back world competitions (the first world champi- a n d forth across h e r rack. 1 b e g a n drawing m y °"=̂ *P ^^^ ^'^^ ' " ^59i), a cottage industry of
Scrabble-related merchandise, game timers, tiles. Beneath t h e table, m y legs were shaking. boards, tiles, etc., books, documentaries, and
This is competitive Scrabble. -> academic articles on the nuances of competitive Scrabble. There are Scrabble-related apps for your iDevices (1 use Zarf, Checkword, the offi- cial Scrabble game, Lexulous, and Words With Friends). There are Scrabble games on Facebook
You have t o u n d e r s t a n d . 1 was lonely in a n e w (i play the official HASBRO game and Lexulous). town where 1 knew no one. 1 wanted to be back ^^'^^^^'^ °"'™. here's the internet Scrabble
Club (ISC), where 1 also play. There is a website, h o m e , w i t h m y boyfriend, in o u r a p a r t m e n t , cross-tables.com, dedicated to tracking all the complaining about how SportsCenter seems to air ° ^ " ^ ' tournaments in the country with scores
and rankings. 1 am ranked 1,651st in the coun- perpetually or listening to h i m nag m e about my try. I'm guessing that's out of 1800 players given
imaginary Internet friends. My apartment was
empty, no furniture, because 1 left my sad gradu-
ate student furniture behind. After work, I'd sit on my lone chair, a step above
._, , I. J J ^ , , , sad, purchased at SofaMart, wondering how my There are more than two hundred Scrabble > b J clubs in the United States. The club in my town life h a d come to this. meets monthly while the club in Champaign, ,... „ • •... j ... i. ,,,. . , , , , . . . . When my new colleague invited me to her Uhnois, meets weekly. In bigger cities, some °
clubs will even meet twice a week. home to play with her Scrabble club,<- 1 was
so desperate I would have agreed to just about
anything—cleaning her bathrooms, watching the grass grow in her backyard,
something smarmy and vaguely illegal involving suburban prostitution,
whatever.
1 didn't quite know what a Scrabble club was but 1 assumed it was a group of
people enjoying friendly games of Scrabble on a Saturday afternoon. 1 told my
mother 1 was going to play Scrabble and she laughed, called me a geek, her accent
wrapping around the word strangely. 1 was roundly mocked by my brothers who
were always the popular kids while 1 was the shunned nerd, a fact they gleefully
SCRABBLE
He is my Scrabble senset. 1 almost beat him once where almost is not so much. Early in the match 1 played TRIPLEX for around 90 points. Then 1 played another bingo. 1 was way ahead and deluded myself into thinking 1 was on Easy Street. The sweetness of my imagined victory was nearly unbearable. Marty would go on to play ENTOZOAN across two Triple Word Score spaces for 203 points. He was Sub Zero in Mor- tal Kombat tearing out my Scrabble spine with his bare hands—FATALITY. We have not played since. 1 have been properly humbled.
1 love anagrams. When 1 was a kid, my mom would write big words on lined paper and ask me to find all the possible words. Now, finding words is kind of my super power.
reminded me of as they made a series of increasingly absurd Scrabble-related
jokes, like, "You sure are going through a DRY SPELL." The man 1 left behind said,
"Come home. You're freaking me out." 1 ignored them all.
My colleague, Daiva, and her husband, Marty, live in a large home in a
wooded neighborhood on the very edge of our very small town. Everything is
modern and unique and interesting to look at—slick leather chairs, pottery,
African art. In their finished basement, there is
enough space for ten to twenty people, some-
times more, to get together once a month to play
Scrabble all day.
Marty <- is a nationally ranked player, top
fifteen. He knows every word ever invented as
well as each word's meaning. If you give him a
seven-letter combination, he'll tell you all the
possible anagrams. 1 would not be surprised to
learn he thinks in anagrams. There are thirty-nine
possible Scrabble words in Q(Ñ](A][G](^(AJ[M]. <-
When you are new to the club, Marty care-
fully explains the rules of competitive Scrabble,
and rules, there are many. You have to keep score. When you have completed
your turn, you have to press a button on a game timer. You have to monitor time
because there are penalties if you exceed twenty-five total minutes for your
plays. There's a proper etiquette for drawing
tiles (tile bag held above your eyes, head turned
away).-> There's a procedure if you draw too
many tiles. There's a protocol for challenging if
you believe your opponent has played a phony,
a word that isn't in the Official Tournament and
Club Word List, "il
As Marty told me all these rules that first day,
1 laughed and rolled my eyes like an asshole and
struggled to take any of it seriously. Until that
day, my Scrabble playing had mostly involved
drinking, friends, crazy made-up words, haphaz-
ard score keeping, and never ever any time
constraints. It was an innocent time.
In the seventh round of the 2011 World Scrabble Championships, Edward Martin, while playing ChoUapat Itthi-Are, realized a tile was missing. The tournament director came up viiith a rea- sonable solution, but ChoUapat demanded Mar- tin prove he wasn't hiding the missing tile on his person. Play resumed and Martin eventually won by a single point. My friend/sensei Marty was totally sitting right next to these guys when this went dovjm. He said, "It was a distraction."
There are multiple official word lists. In North America, most Scrabble players use the Official Tournament and Club Word List (OWL). Outside of North America, players use the Collins Eng- lish Dictionary. At some tournaments here in the U.S., you will find smaller Collins divisions for those Scrabble players who want to test their skills using the Collins dictionary. The challenge is remembering which words are acceptable for Collins, and then remembering which words are acceptable for OWL when returning to tra- ditional play.
3 1
NINTH LETTER
People slowly filed in v«th large round cases. One woman's case was wheeled,
like a suitcase. They set their cases on tables and pulled out custom turntable
Scrabble boards, timers, tile bags, and racks. They got out their scoring sheets
and personal tokens. The games started and the room hushed. 1 realized this was
no time to crack jokes. I realized Scrabble is very serious business.
1 have a Scrabble nemesis. His name is Henry. -> . ,. Henry is not his name.
He has the most gorgeous blue-gray eyes 1 have
ever seen. The beauty of his perfect eyes only makes me hate him more. He has
been known to wear a fanny pack and often scowls. Nemeses aren't born. They
are made.
Shortly after 1 started playing vAth my local Scrabble club, Marty told me
about a charity tournament he holds in Danville, said it would be a great experi-
ence for me to play. 1 had nothing to lose so 1 agreed. 1 had no idea what to expect
as 1 walked into the main building of the community college in Danville. After 1
registered, 1 stood awkwardly, wondering what to do until my club friends took
mercy on me and showed me the lay of tournament land.
Serious Scrabble people study words and remember matches from eight
years ago where they played a word for 173 points. They remember when they
didn't challenge a phony and lost the match. They remember everything. Some
serious Scrabble players are poor losers. 1 am a good loser. 1 am proud of this. 1
loveScrabblesomuchldon't careif llose. Ialso , , . ^^ ^ 1 have always enjoyed board games. 1 love roU-
have to be a good loser because 1 lose a lot so prac- ing dice and moving small plastic or metalticality plays a role. Unlike most serious Scrab- ! sets from around the world. 1 will play any game
ble players, 1 d o n ' t have t h e p a t i e n c e to study so long as there is a possibility 1 can win. 1 take all t h e possible t h r e e a n d f o u r - l e t t e r w o r d s , ^^'"^ seriously. Sometimes 1 take them too
senously and conflate vnnmng the game of Life for example, b u t still, 1 a m extremely competi- with winning at life.
tive. -> It's an awkward combination.
1 began the tournament thinking, "1 am going to win this tournament." 1
approach most things in life with a dangerous level of confidence to balance my
generally low self-esteem. This helps me as a writer. Each time 1 submit a story
to fancy magazines like, say, the New Yorker or the Paris Review, 1 think, "This
story is totally going to get published."
My heart gets broken more than it should.
1 registered and got all my paperwork and such and looked around at the other
word nerds. 1 felt like people were checking me out. 1 was prepared to reenact the
GAV SCRABBLE
beginning of "Beat It" when everyone is silently
stalking each other trying to size up the competi-
tion. There were thirty-two players, four groups
(based on ranking) with eight players in each.
We would play seven rounds to determine the
one Scrabble player to rule them all. The tourna-
ment director read off the names of each person
in each group along with their seed. He read my
name last and 1 understood my place. 1 was the
lowest ranked (worst player) in the room. /> 1 was
the last kid who would be picked for dodgeball.
1 sat down for my first round with the top
seed in my division and she was pretty cocky. 1
was too or 1 was trying to project cockiness and
calm. My hands were shaking under the table
1 was so nervous. My primary ambition was to
not humiliate myself, make any missteps where
Scrabble etiquette is concerned, -> or shame the
members of my Scrabble Club, several of whom
were in attendance.
My opponent looked up and said, "1 was in the
next highest division yesterday." The gauntlet
was thrown. She said it with a kind, warm smile
but she was trying to intimidate me. 1 could tell
by the way her upper lip curled. It worked. Well
played. 1 wondered if 1 could purchase adult
Scrabble people are really quite friendly and gracious but to be clear, they are also intense and serious as hell. 1 have an imagination. In my head, as we prepared to word rumble, 1 felt as if we were about to throw down like in the music video for Michael Jackson's "Bad." A lot of my life can be described in terms of Michael Jack- son's music. I'd explain the significance of "Man in the Mirror," but then you'd think 1 was crazy.
Players can be very... particular about how you comport yourself during a Scrabble game. Some players want complete silence during matches so won't appreciate your idle chatter. Some players think you're cheating if you play with your phone. Don't take a call should your phone ring, that's for sure. 1 once got a dirty look for tapping on my phone vrithout muting it. Apparently, the gentle beeps were simply too much for that player. The longer you play, the more you finely hone these particularities. I, for example, have developed several Scrab- ble-related pet peeves and preferences. 1 have strong opinions on the type of scoring sheets 1 use and the kind of pens I use to keep score (Uniball .5mm roUerball). I now have a very low tolerance for players who draw their tiles in annoying ways. 1 am particularly aggravated by players who do a lot of mixing the tiles up before each draw. IT DOES NOT CHANGE THE OUTCOME. I also do not look kindly upon players who tap the tiles on the board as they tally their points. Why are they doing that? What really sets me over the edge, though, is when players wrill recount my word scores after I've announced my score attheendofa turn as if 1 am incapable of simple math. Certainly, math is not my strong suit, but in general, 1 have addition under control. When this unnecessary score verification occurs, I sometimes have to sit on my hands to keep from punching a player in the face.
diapers at the nearest gas station.
The tournament started and 1 managed to spell my words and use the timer
correctly. 1 got into a rhythm. 1 placed a bingo, "ii I was feeling good. My skin
flushed warmly with early success. 1 started
thinking 1 had a chance. Then Number One Seed
proceeded to v«pe the board with my ass; the
final score was 366-277.1 smiled and shook her
hand but a small piece of my soul was destroyed.
1 thought, "Je suis désolée."
When 1 composed myself, 1 took stock of what
happened. 1 played decently and had two bingos
A bingo is when you play all seven letters on your rack. This is one of the most coveted Scrabble plays. 1 am a bingo player. I have no time to learn all the three-letter words and random obscure words so 1 spend most of my time going for bingos because in addition to the points you earn from the board, you also earn a fifty-point bonus. There are twenty-three pos- sible Scrabble words in BINGO.
3 3
NINTH LETTER
overall. There was simply nothing 1 could do. 1 kept drawing terribly
and getting outplayed and she was so damn confident the entire time. Worse
, , , . yet. Number One Seed played me better than Don't get It twisted. Competitive Scrabble is -̂ ^ •' both word chess and word poker. You need a s h e p l a y e d t h e g a m e . <- At t h e b e g i n n i n g of t h e ganie face and you need to wear that game face ^ ^^^ ^^^^^ .^, ̂ ^ ^ ^ ̂ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ j ., j hard.
teach writing," and she said, "Oh I'm in trouble," 1 choose to believe she asked this because I look ^g^ding to be the weaker prey. Here's the so fresh and youthful. r & r j
thing. 1 play poker. I know a bluff when 1 see one.
Once she got going, she kept smirking, letting me know her foot was leaving an
ugly mark on my neck.
1 was determined to win my second match because 1 am that competitive
and 1 have pride and vanning feels way better than losing. My opponent was
really quiet and taciturn. It was not fun playing her. 1 slaughtered her 403-229
and 1 wanted to scream 1 was so happy. 1 was very tempted to jump on the table
and shout, "IN YOUR FACE." For the sake of sportsmanship, 1 remained quiet and
polite and thanked her for the game. She coldly walked away without so much
as a by your leave. As 1 drove home, 1 did gloat. 1 gloated a lot.
The third match was with a woman I play regularly. She's really nice and
we get along well. She always beats me and that day would be no exception—
score: 390-327. My ambitious, delusional goal of winning the tournament was
faltering. There were four matches left after the break so before resuming play,
we had lunch and 1 ate a vegetable sandvwch. I told Daiva, the woman who had
introduced me to the craziness of competitive Scrabble, "I'm going to win this
tournament." She gave me the saddest look, as if to say, "there, there, crazy little
Scrabble baby."
There's something to be said for the delusion of confidence. 1 won my next
four matches (389-312; 424-244; 352-312; 396-366). 1 was a demon. 1 had my word
mojo. I was seeing bingos everywhere and making smart, tight plays, blocking
triple play lanes and tracking perfectly. -> With Much like m poker where you try to make an
each V«n, 1 felt increasingly invincible. I wanted educated guess as to the cards your opponent to beat my chest. 1 was also trying to distract 7 \l ^
letters played throughout a game. By the end of myself. the game, you should know exactly what your
m the middle of the night, hours before °PP°"'"' ^''' °" tant to track because it allows you to miake
the tournament began, 1 had received a frantic smarter strategic decisions, it's good to know if call from my mother, the kind of call, as your ^'^^ ̂ ^̂ "̂ ' f *" ^^'^^ Q' '̂ ' "• f f ^'^ *" P̂ ^̂
because if there are few letters left and you re parents get older, you hope to never receive. My holding on to a u or an 1 and you know the Q normally healthy father had to be rushed to the \ , \
where you play those vowels so your opponent cannot build a word v«th their Q unless they have the necessary vowels in their own rack.
3 4
GAV SCRABBLE
,_ ,. , - hospital—chest pains and shortness of breath. Everythmg turned out fine.
My first instinct was to say, / am coming home
but fortunately, my youngest brother lives nearby and was able to be there.
Throughout the tournament, 1 was getting updates on my father's condition,
trying to reassure my mother that everything would be fine, "N 1 was trying
not to lose my shit'ii completely. There are 227 possible Scrabble words in
In my last match of the day, it became clear the winner of our match would
win the entire tournament for our division. This is how my nemesis was born.
Henry with the beautiful, piercing blue-gray eyes, was sly like a fox. At the
start of the match, he kept playing two-letter words so 1 did the same. We were
stalking each other around a cage. You know the Snit IS a valid Scrabble word.
naked fight scene in Eastern Promisesi It was like t h a t only we weren't criminals, naked, or There are no bingos with the letters TREK.NG.
If Henry studied, he would know that, in a Turkish bath and 1 was the only one with a number of visible tattoos. He wore a T-shirt that read, "World's Best Scrabble
Player." It was the T-shirt that made me extra motivated to win. The level of
competition was very strong and as the game unfolded, my excitement grew.
As the second seed, Henry The Nemesis was confident he would defeat me. 1
could smell the confidence on him. He reeked of it. 1 played three bingos during
the course of the match. He tried to play Q Q I ^ I H Q ® 1^ t for 81 points but 1
knew that was not a word. [T)[53[13EI®CÛ®[23 t̂ ^kes two | ^ s . 1 challenged. He
rolled his eyes like he couldn't believe 1 had the nerve to challenge his bad spell-
ing. My hands shook as 1 typed his word into the computer. 1 won the challenge.
By the end of the match, he was irate and 1 was giddy. When 1 won, he realized
he wasn't going to win the tournament and had fallen to third place. Because 1
was seeded so low, his ranking was going to take a hit. He refused to shake my
hand and stalked off angrily. 1 thought he was going to throw the table over. Male
anger makes me intensely uncomfortable so 1 tried to sit very still and hoped the
uncomfortable moment would pass quickly. Henry's bad sportsmanship did not
.^ . ,. ^. ^ temper my mood for long. 1 won my first tourna- 1 ended up with an amazing ranking, high tr j o j enough to almost place me a division up. In the m e n t despite being the lowest seeded <- player next tournament.! played, 1 would be seeded ^^^^^ ^^^^ andtookhome a Small cash prize. The much higher and 1 would pay for that, dearly.
size of my ego for the following week was diffi-
cult to measure. It would not last though. What Scrabble giveth, another player,
at another tournament, vAW taketh away.
3 5
NINTH LETTER
The child actors from Diff'rent Strokes, among others,knowalittlesomethingaboutthis.lwas ^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^j ^^ ^ ^ endeavor, y o u thinking I would pull a Mary-Kate and Ashley. Such was not the case. convince yourself you v«ll easily replicate that
success. Ask child actors, 's Three months later. Also not his name.
1 played in another tournament, the Arden Cup,
a twenty-match, two-and-a-half-day affair where I won eight games and lost
twelve. 1 learned a lot. 1 especially learned that it is insane to believe you v«ll
walk into a competitive tournament, among a much larger field, with a fragile
and inflated ranking, and somehow v«n that tournament.
Henry The Nemesis was in attendance as were a host of equally intriguing
and intense players who would get under my skin nearly as much as Henry does.
My least favorite player was Donnie "N who tried to mansplain Scrabble because
he didn't recognize me'ii and took me for a neophyte. As we sat down to start
our match, he said, "Now, you just play this the , , , , . . , . , ' • ' • > ' ' • ' the Scrabble community is fairly small and
same way you play Scrabble at home." 1 made once you start attending tournaments regular-
it my life's purpose, right then, to destroy him. ^^- y°" "̂ '̂ ''' '^' ^ '̂"̂ P^°P^^ °'''' "̂"̂ °''''- Another opponent asked if we should play at his l have my own tournament board now as well board or mine. When 1 told him 1 didn't have my ^' " ̂ ' " ^ '•'^'^ P'"'' ''""°"=>' ^ '̂= P̂'""̂ )' '"'^
long tile racks (sadly not available in pink). I o w n set, h e gave m e a pitying look. -> 1 quickly also have a carrying case with a shoulder strap realized 1 was s w i m m i n g With Scrabble Sharks. 1 volcan rock my scrabble board slung across my
shoulders like a boss. was the blood in the water.
Qoph is a Hebrew letter. My opponent not only shared the word's meaning, he also explained
There was one redemptive moment despite the the origins (something about a sevsring needle; humiliation of that tournament, one where I f'̂ '̂ '̂ '̂ ' ' "̂"̂ '""'"^ ""^ °"' '* '^^' P°*"*) """̂
pronunciation. After the exciting word lesson, lost SO many times the matches blended into a he started telling me all the possible Q words depressing blur, where 1 lost mostly to mans- °"^ "*: ^P^" ^**^°"\" "f ' -""I««'», "is
^ " •' there a'q'm motherfucker?"
plainers who defined words -> even though I did
not ask for definitions, regaled me v«th tales of their sordid Scrabble histories,
and otherwise drove me crazy. 1 beat Henry The Nemesis again. We played tvñce
during the tournament—he won a game and I won a game. At the end of our
second game, the one 1 won, he stood and pointed at me. He said, "You've won
two out of three times. Two. Out. Of. Three." 1 looked down, bit my lower lip to
keep from smiling my face off.
"1 wasn't keeping track," i^ 1 said.
1 excused myself and ran to the restroom, where in the privacy of my stall, 1
,. , ,. whispered, / beat you,/beatyou,/6eai you. There That was a pretty little lie. f > J > J > J
was fist pumping.
GAY SCRABBLE
And SO. My third tournament started brutally and the brutality was unrelenting.
1 ended up winning six matches (one was a bye) and losing six and took fifteenth
place. My friends told me that was a good outcome. I'm pretty sure they were
just being nice given the increased fragility of rny Scrabble ego.
1 did not get to play my nemesis but he was there and he performed well.
1 took that personally.
A new nemesis was also made early during that tournament. In my first
match of the day, 1 was tired. 1 had only slept for three hours after a late night in
the city with friends. 1 am not a morning person. 1 did not have time to find the
nearest Starbucks. 1 could not find any dollar bills to buy a Diet Pepsi. 1 could not
find my Visine. 1 was hungover, gin, which doesn't settle well with me the day
after. My stomach kept turning uncomfortably. 1 was drowsy. If 1 closed my eyes,
1 would simply fall into an uncomfortable sleep. 1 was a mess.
1 was the fifth seed in a field of twenty-one so 1 was stupidly pleased with
myself to still be seeded so high after the previous tournament. My opponent
was unseeded and had no ranking so 1 mistakenly assumed she was a novice
player, "ii From the outset 1 was certain 1 would win the match handily even
though 1 was hungover and barely able to cope with the dryness of my eyeballs.
Toward the end of the match, 1 played [¿¡Ql^QSQIJîlÊ] ^^^ ®(°3 f̂"̂ ^ triple word score. My opponent challenged and she won. When you challenge
two words, though, the computer only tells you ° IvwllfuUy Ignored the memory of the outcome
if the word combination is good or bad. If the of my first tournament where l won as the low- combination is bad, it will not tell you if one or
all of the words in the combination are bad. 1 Braasting is a proper noun and proper nouns are ., , . , , ... 11 . .^ ... J not valid Scrabble words. Broasting is a trade- thought, because 1 was mentally incapacitated, , _, ^ ^ , ,. , . ,
marked method of cooking chicken.
that [ B ] [ ^ must not be a valid word. 1 may not
know my three-letter words but 1 do know my two-letter words. 1 was confused.
1 was not at my best.
A couple moves later, 1 played ( ^ ( ^ j Q Q S Q I j J Q ^^^ E I S i^ ^^^ same
location. My opponent's eyes v«dened. She stared at me like 1 was the stupidest
person alive. In that moment, 1 hated every last cell in her body.
"You're going to do that again?" she asked, but it wasn't quite a question.
It was her tone that totally set me off. 1 had just laid down the titles thereby
making it crystal clear 1 was going to make the same, ridiculous, amateurish
mistake twice. What did she fail to understand?
In my defense, 1 was so convinced |^@I2(X|[^(X|[Í][£]''' was a word,
because it actually is a word, that 1 remained unwavering in my commitment to
3 7
NINTH LETTER
play the word. Had 1 succeeded, 1 would have earned 87 points. As we walked to
the challenge computer, 1 could feel her laughing at me. 1 wanted to cry but my
eyes were still so terribly dry and also, there is no crying at a Scrabble tourna-
ment unless you're in the bathroom and you have carefully checked all the stalls
to make sure you are alone.
The next time 1 see New Nemesis, 1 must explain, "1 am not the idiot you
think 1 am or at least, 1 am not an idiot for the reasons you think."
The match was a massacre. The final score—500-263. That match set the tone
for the tournament. Time and again, lower ranked players taught me painful
lessons. Time and again, 1 was humbled. At the end of the tournament, after the
prizes were handed out and we applauded each of the winners, and the players
who had played the highest scoring words, we losers stood in small clumps of
failure bemoaning how terribly we played while those who played well tried not
to gloat. Their modesty was good-naturedly false. We packed up our boards and
the excitement of the tournament slowly seeped out of our muscles. We shook
hands and bid each other goodbye, until the next club meeting or tournament.
We were no longer adversaries. Q
3S
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