My wife Sharon and I lead an intensely exciting life. Most of our evenings are spent watching marathon reruns of “Everybody Loves Raymond”, “The Middle”, and Andy Griffith, our favorite shows. We’ve seen the episodes so many times, we’ve become competitive to see who can recite the next line of dialogue first.
But every once in awhile, when we really want to live on the edge, I challenge her to a game of Scrabble. I’m talking about the traditional board game, not that sissy, online “Words With Friends” impostor.
She just plays for fun but I take it seriously. I think it goes back to all the times my mother cleaned my clock at this game, even after she got into her 90’s. She’s still going at 99 but her vision is no longer sharp enough to play, no doubt sparing me the humiliation of being defeated by a near centenarian.
I have learned a lot about my marriage playing against Sharon. The other night was a perfect example. She had built the word “zone” horizontally. She was way ahead on the score sheet and I desperately needed a big counter. So I made the word “bogo” vertically, with the final “o” landing directly in front of “zone” to create the word “ozone”. It was a double word score both ways, a huge point total. I was back in it!!!
Now here’s the thing….in my heart of hearts, I knew “bogo” was not a real word. It’s an acronym (buy one get one) and therefore against the rules. But I figured maybe the term has become so comm0n that she would think it was a word and I’d get away with it. It’s not cheating really. I prefer to think of it as creative gamesmanship. Kind of like a football player faking an injury to stop the clock at the end of a game.
Anyway, Sharon stared at the word for a few seconds, then glanced up at me with a wry little smile that said “Yes dear, I know that word is bogus, but I also understand what a ridiculous child you are when it comes to games, so I’m just going to ignore this blatant flouting of the rules and go on with the game”.
And that, my friends, is true love! I’m not sure what filled me with more euphoria at that point…..the knowledge that my awesome wife loves me so unconditionally that she overlooks my obvious faults, or the fact that I zoomed ahead of her on the score sheet. Let’s call it a draw.
Just as I began to rehearse in my mind what humble remark I was going to make after I won the game (“Aw shoot, dear, you played a great game. It could have gone either way.”), she promptly used six of her seven letters to build the word “leakers” into a triple word score.
“Leakers”, I thought? “Leakers? What is leakers? Is that a word?” My mind was racing. How should I react? After all, she let me slide out of pure, unselfish love. The least I can do is return the sentiment, right? So I did what any husband would do.
“What the heck is ‘leakers'”? I heard myself shouting. “I dare you to use it in a sentence”!
“You know, leakers. One who leaks is a leaker. More than one would be leakers”, she said as she counted up her enormous score. Hmmmm….same wry smile.
She wound up winning the game. And after throwing around a few seat cushions and kicking the dog, I was fine with it…I really was.
After all, how many guys can say they are married to a woman who loves him so much that she unselfishly beats him at Scrabble to keep his ego grounded.
………Yeah, let’s go with that.
