My Scrabble Fender Benders

I was standing there, officer, minding my own business, doing my best to drive defensively. I had carefully braked off the triple word score spaces by planting phrases nearby that people can only utilize if they speak Finnish, Hungarian or more obscure dialects of various Inuit languages. I was eking out my points in the sensible, look-both-way fashion that I've known since driver's education class when that coach taught me how not to "ride the clutch".

Imagine my surprise, officer, when the dashboard began to light up with triple word scores and with plays of three letters that actually create four words. I've always been taught that only defensive driving pays off, but this reckless abandon with words has, twice this very week, put me on the curb, waiting for pick-up by the vocabulary equivalent of the truck to the landfill.

My plan to become a professional Scrabble player will require a bit more effort, and a whole lot more "X", "QU" and "Z"s, if it turns out that my darkest secret--my rather second rate mind--is going to be an issue in my quest for the top. I guess that's why I don't have a commercial permit for teaching literature, but only for speaking words that I hope will sound persuasive.

Isn't there some kind of ticket you can issue, officer, for reckless endangerment of the language?

Riding the Sidewalks

( on bicycles, dark ambient music, smoked chicken, girldust, battery-powered spacemen, and the Isle du Bois )