Greg and I have started to play Scrabble against each other again after an agreed upon, totally necessary, ten year penalty.

 
It was Ellie, our nine year old who wanted to add Scrabble onto one of her electronic devices and as long as the game is free and doesn’t involve; breaking up with someone, dressing someone in slutty clothing, anything with Kesha, I usually give it the nod.

 
Our biggest problem a decade ago when Greg and I played Scrabble a lot (we played on the ottoman, we played on the kitchen table, we played outside on the deck, even on the bar counter….but I digress) was that GREG took too long to take a turn and waiting for him made me want to kill M(3)Y(4)S(1)E(1)L(1)F(4).

 
So we started instituting crazy egg-timer rules with timed pauses to refer to the two-letter word sheet we each had a laminated copy of next to our panel of seven vowels (me) and MUZJIKS (Greg) worth seventy-nine points.

 
It got very competitive. It would take four hours to play three words and we would break only for meals, showers, dictionary study and sleep.

 
Then our kids started to notice and we had to take up cribbage so from the outside, it would look like we actually got along. Also, the math was a bonus because it made us look intelligent in front of our children who when interviewed one day will say, “Now that I think about it, we really only ever saw them add up to fifteen.” They’ll probably mention something about my sausage fingers knocking the pegs out of the board too.
This new ipad version of Scrabble has some limitations but for now, we are far more civilized.

 
Greg plays first (wait, why do you always get to start?) and then passes the board to me.

 
Before I can even press “Please pass the board to HotMama44” Greg has asked for the first time, “Have you played yet?”

 
After our third game yesterday, Greg had downloaded a stop-watch app on his phone and we had agreed that two minutes was a fair amount of time for each person to play before passing the board to our opponent.

 
But then we started getting silly again, “You can’t say anything to the person until the two minutes is up. You can’t remind people, ‘You’re at 1:30.’”

 
Agreed.

 
Then one of the kids would come along and say, “Look Mom, you have ‘UP’,” and before I could congratulate them, they had pressed the buttons, hit play and I had earned an abysmal ‘U(1)P(3)’ FOUR POINTS!

 
So the kids are now under a gag order and have to sit on their hands while Mommy and Daddy enjoy playing a friendly game of Scrabble on Ellie’s ipad.

 
Ellie: Hey Guys, when can I have my ipad back?

 
Maybe never.