Many fatal errors exist in this internet age: the reply to all email when you meant to reply to one bashing criticizing everyone but the “one”; the inadvertent post of a crappy blog; connecting all your contacts in your smartphone with your contacts on LinkedIn or Facebook and then having to apologize or the gaffe; or finally, for me anyhow, the linking of your Facebook profile to Words with Friends, or Word Scramble.  I the first two errors: I’ve made in my sleep, I was a pro. The third error, I just clicked “OK” to something that I thought meant the opposite and the fourth, the inadvertent linking of my random iDevice with my Facebook profile has all but done me in.

People who read writers like me make a ridiculous natural assumption connection that just because I can words together string to sense make that fantastic be at will games word I. Especially the timed kind.

Nothing, my friends, nothing — not the popular underground theory that Bonaparte was a good guy or the CIA is just a misunderstood neighborhood watch program, could be more untrue.

I SUCK at word games. I don’t understand the use of Tokens in Scramble, and it’s proof positive that my scores of 215 to 790 in the first round, that I will never ever beat anyone at these games. Word Scramble is timed and when I play it, I become literally unhinged if someone asks me a question or if the house is on fire or we’re being raided by the CIA or if I have an itch somewhere because …

I can’t take it. You have to drag your finger along the screen’s mosaic of letters to make words for points and then the dopamine rush starts and you see the word TOP and then STOP and TOPS and POTS and POST and OPTS and you want to take hostages because you can’t make the E and the D part of the chain, so you cry and you yell for everyone to just stop, stop talking to you, stop asking you questions, can’t you see this is important? I can’t help you, just roll under a wet towel, the flames should go out… doesn’t anyone pay attention to that film strip anymore in Sister Marie’s Fallout Shelter classes?! AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO WATCHED THE FILM STRIPS?!

And what about the fickle nature of the dictionaries in Words With Friends or Word Feud or Scrabble (which frankly is my margin by which I base all other online dictionaries) where PHAT is a word as well as QAT (an Arabian bush):

is a word but QUO is not.

Often, I’ve been heard stating this sentiment, “Oh, thank you Harrison, just place the Qat beside the Willow, it will be simply phat there.”

What’s a player to do? How many times must I execute: QI or XI or ZA or ZIT to earn the points?

What’s a writer to do? Would that I could, my favorite word would be JOULES. I don’t know why, but I can’t wait to use (?) that word. The J is 10 points, but I don’t even care that it mightn’t be used on a TW (that’s triple word) or TL (triple letter) tile; I yearn for the opportunity to use, JOULES, MIEN, REPOSE, GLOAMING, FECKLESS … HARKEN … these are the words I would like to play. Just because I have a writerly vocabulary doth not mean I’m able to EXECUTE it.

y’dig?

I prefer the fanciful nature of Draw Something anyway. Look at what I’ve done, and taken to an obsessive level, I might add, when inspired to sketch out a word…

This is “Lavender”:

and SAFARI (oh, I had fun with this one — it was for only 3 coins, but I didn’t care; I had just gotten destroyed in a WWF game with another writer — it was something like 4338 to 12):

or try this — “CUSTOMER” — after a while, I’ve noticed that my people are starting to have stylized feet and shapes…

So the moral of this story is that you may ask me to play these silly noninteresting pedestrian word games that get people like Alec Baldwin tossed off planes excused from a flight, but I will likely lose because I can’t stoop to the tiny-brained fettering rules that squash scuttle my brilliance brilliance.

Word.

Thank you.