LIVING LIFE

My husband and I have been playing backgammon for several years – actually I have been playing for a few years, and he has been playing for about 40 years. I lose approximately 90 percent of the games, which is not much of a surprise. Imagine a two-year-old playing this game and expecting to win, and you have the scenario.

Last week, I suggested that we try a different game – Scrabble. As evidenced by this blog, I have a fairly strong vocabulary. However, you will be able to predict the outcome of this new idea when I tell you that my husband has played Scrabble for over 30 years, as opposed to me, with maybe five years experience as a young adult. In my defense, my letter tray often looks like a vowel convention, and unlike my husband, I have not memorized every word containing the letter Q but not U. The bottom line is that my opponent’s skills far exceed mine. I am using my skills to write this blog, not creating words that are each worth 30 points.

Our sixth game was particularly interesting. We noticed that the letter X was never used on the board. After checking the floor, chairs, and the dog’s bed, we finally did an inventory and discovered that there was in fact no letter X, but that we did have an additional letter L.

The solution was easy, and the missing X is no longer missing, courtesy of a black Sharpie.

Game on!