A Momentous Occasion.

Sometimes, in the course of human events, the stars align in such a way that highly unusual and even extraordinary things happen. Yesterday, two such events took place simultaneously.

The first was that your father deemed a tee-shirt dirty enough, after two all-day painting projects and years of ordinary wear, to actually throw it away. He has has this shirt since, according to sources, only 2005, which means it had a shorter shelf life than most of his sock collection (and by "sock collection," I mean "collection of threads that he wraps around his feet").

The second was that I lost to your grandmother at Scrabble.

 

She may seem like a sweet lady, children, but don't believe for a second that she's not a "strategic" player, no matter how convincingly she lures you into a feeling of security. The woman played "booze" on a triple word score, for crying out loud. She means business.

What Capital Eyes You Have.

Your dad is pretty good at Scrabble--you can see it in his eyes.

Still, though, I managed to beat him this week. Don't believe me? Check out the score card! (Hint: your dad's column is labeled "husber;" mine is labeled "wiffey."

The lesson here, of course, is that it's much easier to win at Scrabble when you take the tiles out of your eyes. And when you're not playing against a BRILLIANT GENIUS.

The Best Investment We've Ever Made.

What began as an innocent question this weekend ("Do we have Scrabble, Wife?" asked your father) turned into the single wisest thing we have ever done as a married couple. Frankly, the only question that remains in my mind is how it took us so long to buy our own Scrabble game.



We whiled away most of Sunday 'round the board, which we set up in our freshly-swept back porch area (take that, helicopters).



In addition to granting us some much-needed time away from our screens, the game (as always) provided me with infinite hilarity as I rearranged my letters in my trough to form mildly profane expressions.



In fact, if "points" were given for this achievement rather than "making actual words in accordance with the board layout," I might have beaten your father once or twice.

(Also, one small word of complaint. I love Scrabble as much as the next word nerd, but I don't know if I'd characterize a game in which people can read entire paragraphs of their books between turns "edge of your seat" anything.)