When is Scrabble Not Scrabble?

I swore I would never participate in Facebook, even as I signed on. "I'm just curious," I said, "but, I'll never use it.

After looking it over, I concluded that it was a colossal waste of time. However, I did "friend" those who sent requests because it seemed rude not to, somehow. I learned that the goal of most of those people was simply to amass a long list of "friends," and I never heard from them again.

One day, my sister-in-law reported, on my Facebook page, that she had bought a cow. She's such an animal lover! A few days later, she had added a couple of sheep and a bull to keep the cow company. "How is it possible?" I mused. She lives within the city limits of her small town.

Thank goodness I figured out that she was playing a game before I e-mailed her and made an idiot of myself. Still, "I wouldn't waste my time playing that silly game," I scoffed.  "Life's too short." Then, I found out that I could "hide" her daily farm reports, before she expanded her operation to horses and pigs. I have come to love that feature. I'm appalled at the number of people who will post the most intimate parts of their lives, as if they think no one else will read it. That goes for Twitter, etc, and even some blogs, by the way. I accidentally read one blog wherein a woman reported every time she had sex (often) with her husband, and in what room and what table, chair, and in front of which picture window it occurred.  But, that's another blog altogether.  Back to Facebook.

I held firm and didn't try to correspond with anyone. Stubborn That's my middle name.

Then, one day Jay said, "Do you want to play Words With Friends?" "And, what might that be?" I asked. "Scrabble, on Facebook," he replied. "I'll show you how." It is a slippery slope, my friends.

Now, I find myself compulsively accessing the blasted game every hour or so, to see if it's my turn to play. Every time I go there, I see, in the left-hand column, the results of the last four games I have played with him.  "Jay beat you," they all crow, giving the date and score of each game. "Don't they ever go away?" I ask, pitifully. "Or will they be forever memorialized there?"  "Jay says he thinks they will eventually go away, as other scores replace them. Eventually?


In the meantime, "I got 72 points for that word!"he chortles. Or, "There's another 56 points!", he brags, his face wreathed in smiles.  "How does he do that?" I ask myself, as I peer anxiously at the tiles on my board. My letters are M,W,Z,R,X Q. Vowels! I need vowels!

Then, I figured it out. What I really need are math skills. "Foul!" I cry. I know each letter tile has a tiny little number on it, just like regular Scrabble. I'm good at regular Scrabble. I can do the math in regular Scrabble. I used to trounce Jay's father at Scrabble on a regular basis. How come I can't seem to add up the tiles and find the double and  triple word, double and triple letter squares when I need them on Words With Friends?

It's all Facebook's fault. Now, where's my calculator?

Stay tuned.