Scrabble Smackdown

Sometimes all the name calling, taunting, baiting, it all becomes too much. I still have the scars, and it’s hard to contain the rage.

It’s hard to listen to the put-downs, and slander, and not do something. I don’t know what, something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time: like rip off my shirt, unholster The Guns, dig my finger into Mean Gene’s chest, and growl:

“Let me tell you something, brother. This is a big world, with lots of words and lots places to hide. But tonight, starting at around 10:30 p.m. pacific time, I’ll be waiting in the Caged Grid Iron of Hell, sitting at my computer, waiting for some unlucky devil to challenge me to a game of Scrabble. And let me tell you something brother, I won’t be hiding. Because when you dedicate yourself to anagramming, you anagram for life, brother. Ohh yeah!”

(This is about the time the guns get flexed.)

When asked to describe the typical Scrabble player, most people use words like “muscular,” “blond, with a gunfighter mustache and a Prince Valiant haircut,” “tan as a football,” and “wearing tight-fitting, gold underpants.”

This might be the case for me, and Hulk Hogan, but in reality, most Scrabble players are dorks, which is derived from the Latin dorkus, or “One who claims to have studied Klingon.”

Out of shape, compulsive, socially inept, Scrabble players are generally not “well-groomed” or “pleasant company.”

Which brings us to the point of this testosterone fueled rampage: Scrabble is wonderful and fantastic.*

Unlike actually having to do something with your life, Scrabble doesn’t judge you for being overweight and depressed.

It will judge you, harshly, if you can’t list at least two words that have the Q but no U. But memorizing a list of obscure two- and three-letter words is much easier than developing a healthy relationship, parenting a child, finding a fulfilling career or contributing to your community.

Plus, when you get really good at it, no one will care because it doesn’t matter.

There’s a free Internet program you can download in order to vie against other dorks from around the world in life and death struggles where the loser doesn’t exactly die, but feels humiliated, and angry. Some of the competition may not be able to speak English, but will know more words than you and will beat you and make you feel even better.

I, for one, feel great, all of the time, thanks to Scrabble.

*If you don’t believe me, if my word isn’t good enough for you, then ask my Quebecois friend Matt Logan. We’ve never met, but last November, Matt won the 2005 World Scrabble Championship in London, all by himself, using just his razor-sharp intellect and his fingers to lay down tiles. Matt’s a mathematician, his tournament biography says, so he’ll have fun counting all the prize money the best Scrabble player in the world can expect, $15,000. You heard me, $15,000! That will keep him busy for a while.

So take a lesson from Matt and me. If you’ve ever thought to yourself: “Man, I’ve got to get my act together. I’m squandering the greatest gift of all, life.”

Then Scrabble is for you.