Day 153
All of you will who’ve been determined enough to read this far will have figured out there won’t be anyone banging on my door in the near future with a nomination for the Nobel Prize for literature.
Indeed, it’s only the advent of the spell-checker and thesaurus that gives anyone the impression that I’m even remotely literate. That aside, I managed to continue the illusion of literacy this evening by sitting down for a couple of hours and playing a game that I haven’t lost since I got married.
Scrabble.
You may be justified in thinking I’d have an exceptionally poor chance of doing very well at it and you’d normally be correct in your assumption, however, playing Scrabble with the female members of the Snowman household also involves another factor…gullibility.
It doesn’t really matter what letters I draw and place in the tray in front of me, I always manage to come up with a word that scores more points than anyone else.
There is, of course, a very simple reason for this…I cheat.
By this, I don’t mean that I steal a surreptitious look at the letters prior to pulling them from the bag or add on a few extra marks to the scorecard when no one’s looking.
There’s a much simpler and more effective way…I make the words up.
However, to ensure victory in this way, I not only have to retain sole guardianship of the dictionary and act as arbitrator in all disputes but also make my definitions so convincing as to sound completely believable.
They generally pass under the radar for two reasons, firstly, neither of them wants to appear intellectually deficient to the other and secondly they sound like they should be legitimate words, even if they’re not.
For example, I put down a word tonight that was challenged and I immediately made a grab for the dictionary, made a flamboyant charade of finding the correct page and triumphantly announced the confirmation of its validity.
“Er…here it is, ‘an unintentional lower bodily discharge caused by excessive sneezing’…and the X is on a triple letter acore too”.
“And what’s the word again?”
“Um…exoplop”.
Other new Snowman additions to the Oxford English Dictionary that I got away with in tonight’s game were: “cryonip” (a rash caused by continual rubbing of clothing against the breasts), “drizlewank” (the crusty residue left on bed sheets after sex), “slugatrip” (the act of colliding with a team mate during a game of baseball) and of course, “spunkalene” (the synthetic chemical compound used as a stretching agent in the manufacture of rubber gloves).
Clearly this method can’t be utilised when people like my brother-in-law are playing as he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the English language but with the current Mrs. Snowman and, more specifically, Surrogate Daughter it works a treat.
I wish I could concoct a word for what happened today during my first game of poker but one already exists.
I called an all-in with pocket Kings only to see my opponent turn over Q-4 off suit and hit a full house on the flop. Even though I only used 20cents of my bankroll, the second game wasn’t much better either.
Early in the tournament I got involved in a raising battle with another player and it should have been obvious to anyone that my A-J was behind. Well, obvious to anyone apart from me. Sure enough he turned over A-K and I lost with the lower kicker.
And the word?
I’ll give you a clue. It starts with F, ends in K and has a couple of letters in the middle.
…and it’s not “fork”.
So, at least I can say I won something today, even if it was a completely farcical board game. There were a few frowns on the faces of my opponents as they retired for the night but they took their defeat with relative expediency.
The problems usually arise a couple of days later when one of them tries to casually use some of my personally created words in general conversation. Mrs. Snowman is usually the first one to fall into the trap.
It wouldn’t be the only time I’ve heard her on the telephone telling one of her friends that she was late meeting them because her flange was spranting.
Starting bank: $0
Current bank: $0.95
Indeed, it’s only the advent of the spell-checker and thesaurus that gives anyone the impression that I’m even remotely literate. That aside, I managed to continue the illusion of literacy this evening by sitting down for a couple of hours and playing a game that I haven’t lost since I got married.
Scrabble.
You may be justified in thinking I’d have an exceptionally poor chance of doing very well at it and you’d normally be correct in your assumption, however, playing Scrabble with the female members of the Snowman household also involves another factor…gullibility.
It doesn’t really matter what letters I draw and place in the tray in front of me, I always manage to come up with a word that scores more points than anyone else.
There is, of course, a very simple reason for this…I cheat.
By this, I don’t mean that I steal a surreptitious look at the letters prior to pulling them from the bag or add on a few extra marks to the scorecard when no one’s looking.
There’s a much simpler and more effective way…I make the words up.
However, to ensure victory in this way, I not only have to retain sole guardianship of the dictionary and act as arbitrator in all disputes but also make my definitions so convincing as to sound completely believable.
They generally pass under the radar for two reasons, firstly, neither of them wants to appear intellectually deficient to the other and secondly they sound like they should be legitimate words, even if they’re not.
For example, I put down a word tonight that was challenged and I immediately made a grab for the dictionary, made a flamboyant charade of finding the correct page and triumphantly announced the confirmation of its validity.
“Er…here it is, ‘an unintentional lower bodily discharge caused by excessive sneezing’…and the X is on a triple letter acore too”.
“And what’s the word again?”
“Um…exoplop”.
Other new Snowman additions to the Oxford English Dictionary that I got away with in tonight’s game were: “cryonip” (a rash caused by continual rubbing of clothing against the breasts), “drizlewank” (the crusty residue left on bed sheets after sex), “slugatrip” (the act of colliding with a team mate during a game of baseball) and of course, “spunkalene” (the synthetic chemical compound used as a stretching agent in the manufacture of rubber gloves).
Clearly this method can’t be utilised when people like my brother-in-law are playing as he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the English language but with the current Mrs. Snowman and, more specifically, Surrogate Daughter it works a treat.
I wish I could concoct a word for what happened today during my first game of poker but one already exists.
I called an all-in with pocket Kings only to see my opponent turn over Q-4 off suit and hit a full house on the flop. Even though I only used 20cents of my bankroll, the second game wasn’t much better either.
Early in the tournament I got involved in a raising battle with another player and it should have been obvious to anyone that my A-J was behind. Well, obvious to anyone apart from me. Sure enough he turned over A-K and I lost with the lower kicker.
And the word?
I’ll give you a clue. It starts with F, ends in K and has a couple of letters in the middle.
…and it’s not “fork”.
So, at least I can say I won something today, even if it was a completely farcical board game. There were a few frowns on the faces of my opponents as they retired for the night but they took their defeat with relative expediency.
The problems usually arise a couple of days later when one of them tries to casually use some of my personally created words in general conversation. Mrs. Snowman is usually the first one to fall into the trap.
It wouldn’t be the only time I’ve heard her on the telephone telling one of her friends that she was late meeting them because her flange was spranting.
Starting bank: $0
Current bank: $0.95