I’m the world’s worst Scrabble player.
Every time it’s my turn I see other players lose interest as they get ready for a long wait. I feel bad, so I stare intensely at my pieces trying desperately to conjure up a word longer than three letters or else suffer their complaints that I’m “really clogging up the board.” A couple minutes of silence will pass before somebody says “Hey, you know what this game should have? A time limit, ha ha ha ha ha!!!” And everybody laughs and smiles at me and I look up to grin and then stare back down at my letters quickly. I stare at those letters and stare hard. A few more minutes of silence will pass and then I look up, grimace slowly, and offer up one of my two classic lines:
- “Sorry guys, I’ve got like all vowels over here,” or
- “I’m really sorry. It’s like Consonant Central over here, guys. I’ll be just another minute unless Jgrfkll is a word.”
A couple people nod and smile at my lame joke, someone idly turns on the TV and starts flipping channels, and another will generally grab a section of the newspaper and head to the can. I frantically rearrange my letters over and over again, silently praying rebuke, jinxed, or fibula will appear on my little wooden tray by accident.
My nerves fraying, my heart drum-thumping, I’ll eventually put down a lame four-letter word like bill or lamp in an act of desperation. “Eight points,” I’ll whisper to the scorekeeper, while turning the board and nodding to the other players to move along.
… See, part of my problem is that I draw letters like j, z, or q at the beginning of the game and they end up haunting me all the way through. That big q is the worst of all. It holds its powerful 10 points over my head, just daring me to draw one of the four u’s in the game so I can lay it down. I spell my letters out in arrangements like q_ick, q_ote, and q_iet, ready and waiting for a u at any time, but generally no dice, or at least no dice for a while. I got qat or I got nothing.
And so you see that’s why, in my books, there is no better Thing To Happen To You In A Boardgame than picking a q and a u at the same time in Scrabble. I say it beats building two hotels on Boardwalk in Monopoly or drawing a perfect brontosaurus in Pictionary during an All Play.
If I get that q and u together in Scrabble, then it’s all me all the time, baby. Doors open, and I quite quietly and quickly quash all quack queries from my competitors. And baby, you know how that makes me feel.
AWESOME!
Illustration from: here
12 Comments
July 18, 2008 at 3:47 pm
JGRFKLL (prounounced Jagger-fuck-all) is where I am at whenever I play scrabble too, I hear ya dude! Imagine a game between the two of us! That would be awesome….LOL!!
July 18, 2008 at 4:54 pm
No need to wait for the U:
QI (or QIS)
the vital force that in Chinese thought is inherent in all things.
-Scrabble Dictionary
July 18, 2008 at 11:04 pm
That always seems to happen to me too, luckily I don’t play Scrabble that often.
November 19, 2008 at 1:23 pm
FAQIR — Muslim or Hindu monk
FAQIRS — plural of FAQIR
QABALA — body of mystical teachings
QADI — Islamic judge
QADIS — plural of QADI
QAID — a Muslim tribal chief or senior official
QAIDS — plural of QAID
QANAT — gently sloping underground tunnel for irrigation
QANATS — plural of QANAT
QAT — leaf of the shrub Catha edulis
QATS — plural of QAT
QINDAR — Albanian currency
QINDARKA — plural of QINDAR
QINDARS — plural of QINDAR
QINTAR — Albanian currency
QINTARS — plural of QINTAR
QOPH — 19th letter of the Hebrew alphabet
QOPHS — plural of QOPH
QWERTY — the traditional configuration of computer keyboard keys
QWERTYS — plural of QWERTY
SHEQEL — any of several ancient units of weight
SHEQELIM — plural of SHEQEL
TRANQ — sedative
TRANQS — plural of TRANQ
November 24, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Official scrabble rules prohibit:
Foreign Words
Proper Nouns
and Abbreviations
so that’s at least half of the list gone, depending on what you want to consider a ‘foreign word’
January 11, 2010 at 10:57 pm
That list is taken directly from the OSPD (edition 4 or 5, presumably), so if you live in th United States none of those words are considered “foreign”.
February 2, 2009 at 6:38 pm
I never knew many words where I can use the Q.
June 19, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I hate scrabble. I mean I like it but I have the exact same problem I can’t find anything more than 3 letter words. No fun at all!!!
August 19, 2009 at 9:57 am
My dad once spelled “Qi” twice in one turn with the q on a triple letter tile.
September 9, 2009 at 4:12 pm
if you suck at scrabble, don’t play me!!! im usually lucky with my letters (like usually i get both blank tiles), but i always seem to get the q. Luckily, “Qat” saved my life.
January 8, 2010 at 2:48 pm
technical terms
when your hand is all consonants: czech republic
when your hand is all vowels: old mcdonald… e-i-e-i-o
January 30, 2010 at 5:59 pm
Possibly even better than this is when you put the Q on a triple letter score and spell Qi. One letter, minimal effort, but maximal points!