I miss Scrabble.

There are a lot of folks out there doing a lot of important things. Doctor friends go to work saving lives every day. Scientist friends go to work to discover new things to make our lives better (unless they're one of those "green scientists" in which case they work on new ways to make our lives worse: I'm talkin' to you low-flow toilet and twisty lightbulb people). Lawyer friends go to work for an hour and a half each day to remind us that, yes, we too could have been rich beyond merit if we'd abdicated our soul in college in favor of law school. The rest of us cling to those things we do that, if not important, at least make us happy. For me, that happiness comes in the form of a well played game.

I grew up in a forest raised by manbearpigs. As such, without a daddy figure to lead me, I never quite grew into the role of a Chess master. This and this alone is the only thing that keeps me from being one of those jedi-master heroes that pop up in the occasional Hollywood movie. You know the one. He's the wizened genius, pulling off the ultimate smooth operator persona and gaming the system. The chess master runs a ring of super-thieves in some David Mamet-like screenplay with bad dialogue and fun but hole-filled plot. If only I'd learned chess, the world could have been mine in similar style. Instead, I've thrown my certified genius (thank you Acme University) in on the complex game of Scrabble.

That's right, Scrabble has nuances. This isn't just some game for word-wonks filled with the holy spirit of the Oxford English Dictionary. Much like Chess, this sucker can be used to eviscerate your enemy. You can trip up, box in, and stump your prey from even making a move. Scrabble, in the hands of the right intellect, becomes a game of chance, knowledge, and cunning. No, I daresay Scrabble becomes the scepter of a mighty latter-day demi-god!

The moral of the story, if you love playing Scrabble, don't make your wife cry by beating the tar out of her.

Marriage Mind Meld

The Mind Meld is a cognitive condition that affects more than just married couples. The root cause of this condition is significant amounts of time spent in close proximity with someone else. Symptoms include, but are not limited to the ability to complete each others’ sentences, near superpower abilities when playing Pictionary, or picking up the phone only to find the other person is calling you at the exact moment you intended to call him or her.

The Mind Meld can seem like a superhuman power. From a close connection with someone else grows an enhanced understanding of another person, his or her life experiences, and how that person thinks. A short-handed communication is born. Complete sentences aren’t always necessary to convey a point. Sometimes you don’t even need words.

What science has not yet proven about the Mind Meld is whether two people in the Meld just really understand the way the other one thinks, or whether they grow to think similarly to one another over time. Perhaps it’s both.

I have experienced such a condition with roommates. In a game of Taboo, my college roommate was able to elicit the response, “a rainbow!” from me by saying, “something you have never seen…” As one of the other players in this game pointed out, this clue could refer to any number of things I hadn’t seen, such as lions mating in the wild or Bono in concert. But I knew it was a rainbow because of the Mind Meld.

Charles and I have been Melded for years now, long before the wedding took place. When we team up for a game of Cranium, we are virtually unstoppable, unless in the presence of other strongly Mind-Melded couples. I know which grunt means he’s not satisfied with the answer to a question he received, and he knows when my sighs mean something more than just a sigh. Sometimes our very silence speaks volumes.

As wonderful a gift as the Mind Meld can be, it can go awry. Take yesterday, for example. Charles and I have been planning to attend the Irish American Heritage Festival ever since we learned that Eileen Ivers would be giving a concert there. However, we didn’t buy the tickets immediately. It was understood by both of us that we would cross that bridge after our trip to St. Louis at the end of June.

We’ve been back from our trip for a little over a week now, falling back into our daily routines. Yesterday, we decided to take action about the tickets. The deadline was coming up, after which ticket prices would double. I placed the order online while Charles was napping at home, deciding I should act on it while I was thinking about it. Charles placed the order after he woke up, after shooting an IM message that I didn’t immediately see. When I turned around and saw his message, I snatched up the phone to stop the inevitable disaster. He answered just as he hit the sent button to make the purchase.

The moral of our story is this: if you or anyone you know would like to attend the Irish American Heritage Festival this weekend, please let us know! We have tickets!