Paul and I have been playing Words with Friends for over a year. Not together, mind you. Our marriage could not withstand that. We can coach sports together – coach our own children at that. But not play this game. Paul, you see, is a CHEATER.

In full disclosure, I don’t think he means to. He is just too horrible of a speller to know some collections of letters are not words. I can’t even give you an example since it has been so long since we have played, but I am sure Michael (my bro-in-law) or my Dad could give you many examples as Paul beats them by over 100 points in every game with his letter collections. I cannot bring myself to call them words.

My sister is convinced that Paul has hacked into WWF to make it allow him to play these random high-point letter collections. I told her – No, he just cannot spell. See, this is Paul’s real secret weapon. Most people, when they are trying to put letters C, Z, Q, I, F, A together on a board would say NO WAY, those letters don’t spell anything. Paul on the other hand is so diabolical he tried different letter combinations that will score maximum points until the game takes his words.

Yes, he even wears down the computer. When challenged, as is standard practice when playing Scrabble (the high class cousin to Words with Friends) to give the definition of the word, Paul answers:

176 POINTS BABY!!!!

You see why we do not play against each other any more. But I do like to keep my 38 year old brain sharp so I have been playing with others. I try to think of words that I hear daily – you know, make words instead of tally points that the letters could give me. Which is what led me to this moment of mixed emotion.

I was about to 1) use all of my letters and 2) drop a high scoring word using letter x on my triple letter space. I pressed submit and realized that Webster, the dictionary dude, was a Yankee. Check this out: