The 7 Letter Words

A Scrabble Tale...

The 7 Letter Words thought no end of themselves.

"If we were human, we would be going to Mar A Lago every summer." they said amongst themselves.

When they were played, the 7 letter words preened as if they were wearing Harry Winston necklaces or Royal Oak Offshore watches.

They sashayed onto the Scrabble board, like they were entering an exclusive high end club, sipping champagne out of Paula Champagne flutes.

They were the Collins Elite as far as they were concerned.

Queenie,  Eutaxia, Aurelia, Jazzily, Quizzed.

Adeptly, Bougies, Chutnee…..they went all the way from A-Z…and they were all snooty, all 32,909 of them.

Cliquish, they looked down their noses at all the non 7 letter words in the SOWPODS.

"No game where we don't reign" was their secret handshake.

Unknown to them, a baby would be born whose birth would change everything - and would make the edifice of their claim come tumbling down.

The baby was born to the Titus family, and was christened Eugene.

From the time Eugene could speak, he uttered sounds like ee, zo, and qi.

They were strange and mysterious sounds.

Eugene did not know, but it foretold of his future as The Chosen One – the one who would trash the "No game where we don't reign" claim of the 7 Letter Words.

The definitive event took place in the Scrabble Tournament one MAA Day.

Eugene and Minoo had defeated the other contestants in the initial rounds of the Scrabble Tournament, and were now pitted against each other in the finals.

Minoo had no idea that Eugene was the Chosen One.

All she knew was that there was some very unusual Scrabble play from Eugene.

He was extremely parsimonious in his words, placing on the board the smallest words possible, making it hard for Minoo to score.

And he played away from high scoring spaces, to minimize the chances of Minoo benefitting from those.

"Oho", thought Minoo, as she sized up his defensive, blocking strategy, "two can play at a game".

And so she played the game with the same defensive, blocking strategy.

After every play he made, Eugene beamed a wide all-teeth smile, which could have been interpreted as either angelic or devilish. Minoo could not tell which.

And after every play Minoo made, she was tight lipped and unsmiling.

In those days, if Minoo was sad, happy, or joyful, there was no way to tell from her expression.

She was always poker-faced.

The 7 letter words couldn't believe what was happening.

At half time, not one 7 letter word was played.

At 3/4 time, not one 7 letter word was played.

At game's end, with only few tiles left in the bag, their hopes were completely and utterly dashed.

It was a tight match between Eugene and Minoo.

The score was close right till the very end.

Either of them had the potential to win the game.

Minoo won by the skin of her teeth.

The big loser of this historic game was not Eugene, but the 7 Letter Words.

They went home empty handed - their beliefs shattered, their status demoted, their claim of "No game where we don't reign" meaningless.

They were, to use a 7 letter word…humbled!

This post is dedicated to Eugene Titus and Mira Prabhu, two Scrabble friends who are sadly no longer with us.

Scrabble enthusiasts, can I ask you to raise a glass of water or wine as a tribute to Eugene and Mira before you play your next Scrabble game.

When you do that, I like to think Eugene will beam his wide all-teeth smile from heaven at us, the same smile you couldn’t tell if it was devilish or angelic, except now, we can safely assume it's angelic.😇

Quiz question for Scrabble enthusiasts: What is SOWPODS referred to in this post?