Scrabble

Olivia and I recently joined my mom for a quick jaunt to Battle Creek. By quick jaunt, I mean, we left home at 10:30 on a Saturday morning and were home at 3:15 that next Sunday afternoon.

Grammy Dotty lives in Battle Creek with my Auntie Laura. Auntie Laura also cares for her husband, who is not well. Her son, Aidan, lives with them as well and helped care for Grammy Dotty and Bill, Laura’s husband.

But wait, that’s not the entire cast of characters.

After my mom picked up me and Olivia, we drove to Angola where we picked up my mom’s two older sisters, Aunties Judith and Kathy.

And once we got to Auntie Laura’s house, my mom’s youngest sister, Auntie Nora arrived. Got it?

So, in order of age, here were the sisters in attendance:

Judith, Kathy, my mom (Gram or, Thea if you will) Laura and Nora.

First we made lunch, which was lovely.

Then Aiden set up the Scrabble board.

My mom and her sisters, as well as Aidan, are cut-throat Scrabble players.

I enjoy a game of Scrabble but I don’t feel the need to sabotage the board in order to keep others from making decent words.

We sat down to play the first game which included me, Aidan, my mom and Auntie Judith.

The house rules for this Scrabble game are:

Everyone draws one tile to see who goes first. The person with the letter closest to A goes first, then the person to that person’s left and so on.

Then, everyone draws another six tiles to bring them up to seven. After each turn, you reach in, get your allotted tiles and move on.

The problem is, Auntie Judith cheats and it makes my mom, Auntie Laura and Aidan crazy.

How does she cheat, you ask? Well, the very first part of the game, pulling one letter out of the bag, is hard for her. She’ll reach in, pull out three tiles, look at them and then pick the one she wants, putting the other two back.

Then, she does that same little act every single turn. Even if she only played two tiles, she’ll reach in, take out a handful, sort through them, choosing the tiles she wants and then put the extras back in the bag.

My mom calls her on this every single turn and Auntie Judith gets snippy, insisting she didn’t do that when everyone at the table saw her do it. Or, she’ll play dumb and ask, “How else am I supposed to get more letters?”

To which my mom replies, “By reaching in and pulling out one at a time, if necessary. Only take as many as you need. You don’t get to pick and choose from a handful!”

The very first time my mom called her out about it, she took one too many tiles and so said all innocently as she put one back, after looking at them all, “Ooops, took one to many.”

And you know what? It’s actually not even any fun to play with someone who plays like that.

She ended up pulling ahead and winning by a single point in that first game.

The second game, though, Aidan won by a landslide.

I knew from the start that it wasn’t going to be my game so instead of playing defensively for myself, I played for assist points (which obviously don’t get counted on my scoreboard but they sure as hell made me feel better when he beat Auntie Judith by a t least 50 points.) by strategically playing words that would help him play even better words.

And the thing is, Auntie Judith is so wrapped in her own little game, her own world that she didn’t even realize we’d ganged up on her. Which maybe wasn’t fair but it sure was fun.

This was the first gathering of the sisters since Auntie Nell (her real name) died. It was sweet and sad and everyone missed her so very, very much. She loved Scrabble too and she was NOT willing to let Judith get away with anything either.