90 points

My family has always played board games together. Some games I loved playing, others not so much. I should have known something was amiss the day my brother Steve taught me to play chess. There is 6 years between us, and little did I know in my youth that the Bobby Fisher books he was reading after the chess lessons sealed my fate. It was this evil streak of his that made me hate word games. Scrabble, upwords, and the like, were evil. Steve's vocabulary was always impressive...and an 8 year old was no match for him.

Christine and the boys like board games too, and of course, Scrabble is Christine's favorite game. Last night she was playing with Max, who at 13 isn't much competition for his mom. I offered to help, only because I was quite sure I could come up with words that earned more points than "fat" and "fatty". In the course of my helping, Max disappeared. So, I continued to play for him, even though scrabble frightens me. Somehow (it had to have been an act of god) I was able to put down the word "vortexes". 90 points...yes, I kick ass. That handy little word pulled me out of the depths of the one syllable nightmares and actually gave me what I needed to beat Chrsitine. I have never played an entire game of scrabble in my life...and last night I won. I finished my evening my calling my mom and brother, who were very proud