Words with Friends is kind of like this popularity club where you not only get to see who likes you whenever they start a game with you, but then you get to prove how smart you are and pretend it was all just random chance because the Universe just gave you good letters.
My friend’s idiot husband whose name rhymes with Ned keeps starting up these games of WWF with me (Words, people, not pro wrestling) knowing full well that I’m both a certified English teacher and a bestselling author, so really, he only has himself to blame.
Ned’s Word: cry
My Word: wavery (didn’t he know Ws are worth, like, a million points?)
Ned’s Word: dad
My Word: adeptest (plus the bonus for using all my letters)
Ned’s Word: nor
My Word: hoax (on both a triple letter and a triple word score)
Ned’s Word: read
My Word: manhole (once again, score for using all my letters)
What is really sad is that Ned not only keeps coming back for more, but he uses the chat feature of the game to trash talk. He’ll rack up a whopping nineteen points with some four letter word that happens to fall on a double word score, then chat about how “in your face” he’s being with that word. He’s usually still trying to type that while I’m putting “pathogen” on a triple word score/two triple letter score combo.
The saddest part of the whole thing is how deadly serious this is to me. I am a word ninja on a mission to take out Ned and his entire family, like this “wipe his seed from the Earth” kind of hatred. This is like taking my oral comps for my Master’s degree all over again, like I can prove how really, really good with words I truly am and there’s some board of professors sitting to pass judgment on my next move. I have missed meals and neglected to bathe my children over this game. It’s the English teacher equivalent of a crack addiction. But luckily, I’m really, really good at it, or at least I am when I’m playing someone who can barely speak the language, let alone compete in it.
UPDATE: the absolute best thing ever just happened: I’m not only beating Ned, but I just replied to his chat by saying, “I’m blogging about how bad you suck at this game.” It’s like a win-win for the entire universe. Of me.
Lorca Damon 
Way to kick his butt, Rachel!
LOVE this! I have had this type of experience myself. One idiot after having lost to me I don’t know how many times, went and told a mutual friend that he quit playing with me because it wasn’t challenging to him and that I used three letter words. Here’s a few more for him. LIE. PIG. ASS. Too bad “sore” “loser” have more than 3 letters each.
If you build the word SORE on the end of LOSER to make it plural, and the S happens to fall on a triple word score for both words, you just beat the crap outta him!
LOVE this! I have had this type of experience myself. One idiot after having lost to me I don’t know how many times, went and told a mutual friend that he quit playing with me because it wasn’t challenging to him and that I used three letter words. Here’s a few more for him. LIE. PIG. ASS. Too bad “sore” “loser” have more than 3 letters each.
Ned deserves the butt-kicking you’re giving him. Keep it up.
Thanks! I really, really can’t wait til his wife follows him through the house reading this blog post to him!
I love you. 🙂
If you put the L on a TL score and the V stretches it to a TW score, then that equals “I love you back” in points! 🙂
Good morning Lorca. I used to teach English at UK secondary; it’s slow death for the caring and enthusiastic and my stress related illnesses and leaving teaching are proof of that. Ned is clearly like one of those parents I’d have to deal with on parents’ evenings, you know them, the ones whose parents didn’t spend any time with them, but told them they were brilliant, even though they were clearly ‘below average’ and so they show off and try to beat teacher to prove they are as clever as their uncaring parents said they were, meanwhile you’re trying to talk about their child. Ned doesn’t need scrabble, he needs to be hugged by his dad and approved of, which isn’t going to happen. Ned is the attention seeking kid in the class, unhappy with himself, but unwilling to admit it; seeking love and attention and approval, yet spurning it when he gets it, out of pride and mixed up emotions. You should either write ‘It’s okay to cry little Ned Ned, daddy really did love you, he was just busy and mummy loved you, she just didn’t know how to show it; go ahead Ned let it out, we’re all friends here.’ OR just stop playing and apply my maxim of ‘Never argue with drunks,idiots or teachers, they don’t admit it when they’re wrong.’
On another note it’s four in the morning and my severely autistic nine year old nephew, whom we are looking after overnight once a week, to give respite care for my sister in law, since the Camerlition government cut benefits, is treating me to over an hour of the same bit of the ‘Toy Story’ video played over and over again. I know you’ll be aware of what that’s like. Gotta go anyway, I smell a nappy that needs changing. I’ll deal with my nephew’s crap and you beat it out of Ned; go easy on him he just needs someone to bring out little Ned inside and tell him it’s okay to cry.
Aside from the totally accurate diagnosis of Ned, you are a rock star wrapped up in a superhero for taking ANY nine-year-old for an evening, let alone an autistic one! Spend this time thinking that Toy Story is the greatest movie ever made. It will make the time fly by!
It is a great film, but we’re only watching the bit where Woody first meets Buzz on the bed. My nephew likes me to say the bit ‘He’s not a space ranger, he doesn’t fight evil or shoot lasers or fly in my best Tom Hanks voice.’Since yesterday at 4pm I’ve said it well over five hundred times I guess and we started this day at 3am. I’ve had four cups of coffee since 3am as well. Still my sister in law is looking better so it’s all worth it. My kids love their cousins anyway so he has a good time here. I get cooked breakfast and get to go back to bed when he’s collected at 8 am so it’s all good. As a teacher I find him fascinating.
That’s really the thing about these kids, and I know I sound like an ignorant tourist in AutismLand, but my daughter is just fascinating! Yeah, my normal daughter is super cool too, but I don’t feel the need to follow her around and watch what she does…she would be so creeped out by that!
Fists of rage! Someday I will beat you. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
Just click your heels together and say, “There’s nothing like winning at WWF. There’s nothing like winning at WWF.”
Hey, now. I’m an English major, too, but I suck at this game. You want a clearly written user manual for any tech toy on earth with photos, engineering drawings, 3D rotatable model images, and applicable computer code …all in an appropriate reading level and style for the target reader…with the highest levels of comprehension and application results? I’m your girl. You want me to place letter tiles in strings for ultimate point value? Forget it. I forfeit. You win. Lol.
Bwahahaha! I know the feeling! It usually crops up whenever I’m asked to add numbers together!
It is win-win. Now if you could just take on my husband… the most boastful winner and the sorest loser. Refused to lose at checkers to our kids when they were just 2 years old.
That’s really the only reason it’s fun to beat this person. Because he handles it So. Very. Badly.
Oh no. Another cry-er of a post! I nearly peed my bladder is so full. But had I, I would just keep on laughing. Have I told you that I love you lately? LOL!!! Roar of a post.
You are too kind! Or too tender-hearted. Or too bounteous. (I could keep going, I’m awesome at this!)
‘Cause you know ALL the words… My favorite is bounteous. Yeah. Call Me Bounteous.