Triple Word Score

If you're like me, you like to party.

Hard.

By playing Scrabble.

Ain't no party like a Scrabble party, cause a Scrabble party don't stop. Until you run out of letters to play. Then it stops. But you can always shuffle the tiles and play again. All night long.

And tonight, on New Year's Eve - the biggest party night of the year - you'll know where I'll be: Sitting on the living room rug, Scrabble board on the coffee table, and Dick Clark on the telly. And there will be some snacks.

Oh yes, there will be snacks.

There was a time - not so long ago - when New Year's Eve meant dancing and drinking, music and celebrating. But my wife's 30 now. That's like 108 in cool people years. So despite my pleas to the contrary, she wants to stay in. And play board games. Like senior citizens in a long term care facility.

But that's okay. Because I am the world's greatest Scrabble player. And I love to beat my wife (at Scrabble; don't take that out of context).

I am unbeatable at Scrabble. She takes me to task at remedial games like Sorry or Connect Four, but when it comes to an alphagramized rack of jumbled letters, I'm a savant.

I'm like the Bobby Fisher of Scrabble. Except I'm not an dead ex-pat anti-American recluse who hates Jews. Other than that, I'm just like Bobby Fisher. That is, if Bobby Fisher played Scrabble instead of chess. But he didn't. So I guess we'll just leave Bobby Fisher out of this. But you get the point. Maybe.

And because I am a sore loser, I cheat mercilessly. I use proper names, acronyms, Spanish obscenities, abbreviations, slang, words with no vowels, I'll hide tiles or flip them over and use them as blanks - I'm ruthless in my no-holds-barred Scrabble play. If I'm challenged, I pout and quit. It's an effective strategy. If I find myself losing, I spill Diet Coke on the playing board or "accidentally" sweep all the tiles off with my sleeve. Fistfights are not uncommon.

It's Contact Scrabble, really.
So tonight, while you're ringing in 2009 with noisemakers and merriment, clinking champagne glasses and singing Auld Lang Syne, we'll be recalling the list of words which have a Q but no U and racing for the dictionary.

But either way, we'll all be bidding adieu to 2008 and hoping for a glorious 2009. And that's a good thing.

Because 2008 has - to use a 58-point word - SUCKED.