Do Not Play Words With Friends With My Dad

XEQAL. Good word! I'll play that!

When I have free time, one of the things I do is play games on my iPhone. Zynga produces most of the games I love, and my two top games are Scramble With Friends, and Words With Friends. I play Scramble with Friends mostly with a woman I used to work with and a couple of people I don’t actually know, who I started out playing randomly matched games with, and with whom I have kept playing for almost two years now. I like Scramble With Friends a lot, mainly because I can beat most of the people I play, and when I lose, I usually don’t lose by much. Words With Friends, though, is a different story.

When I play Words With Friends, I often experience defeat similar to that of Napoleon at Waterloo. The worst thing about the game, aside from my losing all the time, is that my opponents always seem to be able to play words that are worth, like, 85 points or something, while I will play a word worth two points. The person who most often whoops my butt is my dad. My dad and I have, like eight games going on Words With Friends at any given time. I like this arrangement because, after we reach a certain number of games, statistics are on my side and I actually stand to win one or two. I don’t know how many of you know my dad, but, (and this may be a little-known fact) he will kick anyone’s butt at any sort of word-related game.

One time, on Christmas, my family was playing Bananagrams. If you are not familiar with the game, you get a bunch of letter tiles that come in a zippered pouch that looks like a banana, and you have to be the first person to make a bunch of words from the letters you get. You can read more about it here. Well, playing Bananagrams with my dad on Christmas was about as much fun as getting an exam from a proctologist on Christmas. The rest of us would be sitting there, puzzling over our letters, trying to come up with words, while my dad is over there, down at the end of the table, already done with all of his letters and reading the paper. I literally could not win. None of us could. No one could even come close. It was like in The Matrix, when the agents tried to fight Neo, and they would get so far as to even cut him up a little, but then he would just zoom back and knock them into another state. (I have been enjoying HBO Go on my Apple TV by watching The Matrix Trilogy, but that’s a story for another day)

Now, when I play Words With Friends with my dad, I experience the same type of annihilation on a regular basis, only I will win maybe one out of every ten games. My dad is a sneaky devil. I don’t know if he plans to play this way, or if it just happens, but he will even let you get ahead of him, and then he will come back and play a word and jump way ahead of you. So I’m sitting there playing the word “it” for two points, because I have five letter i’s, an o, and a t, and then he comes back playing the word “quais” on a triple word score tile with the q on a triple letter score tile, for like 870,000 points. What the hell is a “quais,“ anyway?

Okay, I just looked it up, and it is the plural form of “quai,” which is an alternate spelling of “quay,” a word I actually know. It means, “a structure built parallel to the bank of a waterway for use as a landing place,” according to Merriam-Webster. But how does my dad even know this? The word is French, and I don’t think he even ever took French. The man has some sort of computer-like ability to learn and memorize words.

What do you mean Doritos isn't
a word???!

My talent, meanwhile, seems to be in discovering that I have all of the letters to play a really awesome word. It will take me approximately four and a half days to scour and search my letters to come up with the word. I will even find a place to put said word, on the game board, and the little number will light up next to it telling me that I am going to get 150 million points or something for my word if I play it. I am super excited, because, not only have I placed the word on a triple word score tile, but I have also used all seven letter tiles, which gets you extra points. So, I press the play button, and the game informs me that my word “is not an acceptable word.” And then I fuss at the game. Since when is “Doritos” not an acceptable word?! I see it used all the time on commercials, and on the bags of chips I walk by in the grocery store! (I have to speed on down the chips aisle to avoid my Weight Watchers arch nemesis, Baked Cheetos.) And, then, like John McEnroe after a particularly difficult defeat, I kneel down in anger, contemplating what might have been.

My dad, in the meantime, is down at his house, playing his next word on his iPod Touch, while simultaneously cutting the grass, building a toy box for my niece, and smoking a giant cigar. (My dad doesn’t actually smoke, but I thought the cigar there added a nice touch.) After scanning his letters for about one one-billionth of a second, he goes, “Oh, look, I can use all seven letters to play the word “abaxial,” and I can put it on the triple word score with the x on the triple letter score. Oh look, one million points. Yes, yes, this is good. Now let me finish edging the driveway.”

I think you get the idea. So, basically, my dad kicks my butt like it was a soccer ball during the World Cup. He is also very efficient at kicking it, as he is at most things he attempts, and our games do not drag on forever, allowing him to kick it the maximum number of times possible in a 24-hour period. My dad is a good man, a smart man, and a kindly man, but man, oh man, do not get on the wrong side of him in a word game!

And, if you are just itching to know what abaxial means, click here.

Words with Friends image courtesy of http://catherinebuday.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/followup-when-words-with-friends-opponents-fall-in-love/.

Doritos image courtesy of http://www.fritolay.com/our-snacks/baked-doritos-nacho-cheese.html