#990 Picking up a q and a u at the same time in Scrabble

Neil Pasricha

The devil

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:

  1. “Sorry guys, I’ve got like all vowels over here,” or
  2. “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.

Consonant CentralMy 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!

The goal

Illustration from: here

20 thoughts to “#990 Picking up a q and a u at the same time in Scrabble”

  1. I often play a Scabble-board-less game with the tiles called “Take Two”. If you get a Q and no U, you are screeeeeeewed.

    But more often than not, I seem to be burdened by Z or X. And, naturally, my brain immediately splurges Z and X-ey words that don’t actually exist, rather than supplying helpful phrases.

    My brain’s a jerk, sometimes.

      1. Ahh, thinking outside the box!

        Unfortunately, wouldn’t work for me. My sister and I play Scrabble with a battered old dictionary, using the rule: “If it’s not in the book, it’s not on the board.”

        Alas, “Qi” is not in our dictionary. Ah well… We shall have to struggle with our U-less Q’s.

        1. This is ancient Chinese philosophy, for example: Chinese, qi, air, breathe through body~ Are you certain it’s not in *your* dictionary~ Grasshopper?

  2. I haven’t played the actual board game in a loooooong time. I do have the words with friends app on my phone, though. I play with a few people. I like it becuase it tell me if I actually have a word or not, LOL…
    Very rarely will it give me a Q and a U together. I’ll have to save one of the tiles hoping for the other to pop up soon.

  3. To add to your scrabble vocabulary “Qi” is a word and has gotten me out of a pinch a number of times.

    Love this blog by the way!

    Awesome!

  4. You should try Speed Scrabble. Everyone creates their own puzzle in front of them. Start with 7 tiles each, and when someone uses all 7 they say “go” and everyone takes another. Play until all tiles are gone and someone goes out. Score just like regular Scrabble, except no bonus squares. We have a long word bonus – 10 points!

    1. This sounds fun! Just to clarify – when someone yells “go” does everyone take another 7 tiles?

    2. Yeah! Sounds like a version of what I wrote about up top — we call it Take Two. We start with five tiles; when someone uses all five, they shout “Take two!” and everything takes two more tiles. It’s so much fun, and it eliminates Neil’s problem of worrying about everyone waiting for you to finish your turn. :)

  5. Hey, everyone! Sorry I’ve been AWOL from the comments section lately – I had a bad cold, and I was busy at work, and…. oh, never mind, I guess I have no good excuse.

    So I’ve gone on a commenting jag to catch up! So nice to hear from old friends and new, eh?

    3. Oh good! I’ve been meaning to tell you since you asked a few posts ago, my middle name is Lynn, first name Becca

  6. Oh, man. I too am a terrible Scrabble player. I’ll be staring at the board for hours and hours, and then finally figure out that all along, I had all the letters I needed to write “xylophone” or something. Picking up a Q and a U at the same time is quite awesome. It’s a guarantee that whatever word you spell will earn you a lot of points.

  7. Awesome. Thanks for starting this up again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  8. Quail
    Quit
    Square
    Squat
    Squeal
    Are all words I can never seem to find!

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