“Bezique” and Other Semi-True Confessions of a Would-Be, Scrabble Champion

First Semi-Truth:
While I have been in the presence of a Scrabble board and even know people who have claimed to have played; I, myself, have never played the game. It frightens me to say that it might be too late.

My vocabulary is slipping. I used to be good with words. I used to use words just for the sake of hearing them roll off my tongue. It didn’t take me long to catch on to the fact that no one else enjoyed my use of words.

Second Semi-Truth:
My friends and family went from impressed, to bored, to annoyed, to just blatantly ignoring my multi-syllabic, word-farts. A strong vocab surely hasn’t helped me at work. In fact, I think my job can take partial blame for this whole thing! Customers aren’t going to be impressed with, “Excuse me, sir; please do not obtrude in on this embroilment. I can handle the denunciating pubescence myself!”

Keep it simple.

I can remember a classmate from my library associate class asking if we weren’t all joining this profession with a secret desire to de-corrupt the masses: to somehow win over the young girl seeking “Sheisty” or worse, “Still Sheisty” and turn her in to an Austen faithful, who sips tea as she tours the grounds of Bath.

Third Semi-Truth:
I can remember thinking, “Wow! That was a little racist, right?” I mean who’s to say Austen's more worthy of being read than Zane. Are we judging the work or the reader and is it our place to judge? But then…things changed, somewhere along the way. I think it was after the second or maybe even third request I got for a book called, “HOW-TO Kill a Mockingbird”.