It was a Tuesday night and after dinner my mom suggested we play scrabble. My dad and I agreed and she went and got the game while we cleared the table.
We drew letters. I drew an A, my dad drew an S and my mom drew a W, so she got to go first.
We all drew our tiles. She examined them and frowned. She laid down 'get' on the star for 8 points.
"Get?" I asked.
"I didn't have any letters!"
I smiled and laid down W-I-N-E-S to make 'bets' and 'wines'. With the double word score that gave me 21 points.
"You think you're pretty good, huh?" my mom asked.
I shrugged. "I am pretty good." It was true. I sometimes played scrabble online,
"How'd you like to make it interesting then?" she asked.
"Sure," I said, "how much? Five bucks? A dime a point?"
"How about a point a point?" she asked.
It took me a second but then I smiled. "Deal," I said.
"What happens if I win?" my dad asked.
"I guess you can earn some points," she replied, "but if you lose, you'll owe me that much extra housework."
"Wait," I said, "How is this going to work with three people? Do we just both compare our scores to yours?"
"Yeah, I guess," she said.
"Alright," my dad said, laying down 'grimes' for 9 points.
"I don't think that's a word," my mom said.
"It is, you gonna challenge?" he answered.
"No." She smiled and laid her tiles down alongside 'grimes' to make 'around', 'ma', 'er' and 'so'. She recorded her 15 points.
"You looking forward to some extra chores?" she asked me and my dad.
I rolled my eyes. I looked down at my tiles. I squinted, as if that would help me form words better. I was just starting to rearrange my tiles when I saw it. I added on to 'ma' to make the word 'malignant'.
"That's 12 points I said, plus 50 for playing all seven tiles. My mom smiled and shook her head.
"Why do I have the feeling that this is not going to end well?" she said.
From there things got worse for her. She yelled "I have NO vowels!" a couple of times during the course of the game.