Scrabble...

Since Ben's residency we've become Scrabble players. My mom started us on it, and we've become pretty competitive (Mom, Ben, me, and whoever else we can rope into playing it). I thought we were pretty hard-core--apart from using the dictionary to look up words, and using the two-letter-word cheat sheet. Sometimes we play variations of the original. For example: for a quicker game play with only 2 people, you play with 9 letters instead of the standard 7.

Then, the other day I learned that in competitive Scrabble, they play with timers. You only have 25 minutes to make all your words for the game. And you get docked like 10 points for every minute you go over. So, in competition, a Scrabble game between two people would only last 50 minutes. We're nowhere near that fast!

The other night, however, I played the most awesome game of Scrabble against Ben. I NEARLY hit 300 points (297). I even took a picture of the board so I could post it here, and of course, it's not on my dumb camera. (Have I mentioned I hate the thing? I'm getting a new one this week! By the way, thanks for working those extra shifts, honey.)

Anyway, it was a great win. Ben started with a huge word that went from the middle space to one place away from the triple-word-score on the right. We laughed and said it was a race to see who could get an "s" and put it on the end of that word--that way you'd get TWO triple-word-score words. Huge score, for those of you who are not Scrabble players. I happened to get the "s" first, and I even used my "z" in that new word. So I ended up with like 71 points for that turn.

There was no catching me after that. I was smokin'. . . on fire! And I was even trying to keep my turns very short, with this new official rule in the back of my mind. (It only helped a little that I got all the high-point letters, like the "q", "j", "z", and "x".) It's just too bad I don't have the proof (pic) I wanted. Ben's already claiming that game never happened. Though I think I still have the score-card.