Ok, I realize this is the equivalent of "Don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful," but, don't hate me 'cause I'm good at Scrabble. First, let me say that there are people who consistently cream my ass in Scrabble -- Owen and Holly to name two. But in the general population, I am very good. And it makes people hate me. So much so that it becomes uncomfortable and I try to play worse so as not to totally alienate myself.

I'm good (not great) at Scrabble for a few reasons. One, I have played ever since I could spell. Every summer at Donner Lake I would play with my extended family. I got my first taste of Scrabble resentment from my grandma who would roll her eyes at words I had learned from the dictionary. Even though she played QUA (the night heron) every other game, she could not accept QI (variant of CHI, the Chinese ethereal energy) or AA (type of lava, which I have indeed used in everyday speech ordering Kona Aa coffee at Peet's).

Let's skip to tonight. I went over to Tara's house for oysters and BBQ. Tara suggested Scrabble. I had the first turn, and fate dealt me BREWERY, for 84 points. "Oh, god, well forget it, it's over" says Tara. "Fuck this, we should just start over" says Matt, "There's no coming back from that."

Next few turns are decent, but nothing special. BRAIN for 18, FRET for 14. Matt and Tara are complaining about their four O's and three I's. Then I play ANION, for 11 points, and Matt's wife Camille gives me props for a good word. Matt is now a ball of frustrated rage, kvetching about some move he should have made that screwed him, and his 15 O's.

I play ET. Matt and Tara are furious, and decide that Tara should challenge me. "It's the past tense of 'eat' don't challenge it. I know, it's a dumb word, but it's in there." Tara challenges me anyhow.

"Oh, it's probably in there, but it's not that past tense of eat!" shouts Matt.

Needless to say, it is, which causes Matt to hurl his tiles into the stockpile and quit. His wife tries to calm him down but he is unconsolable. Tara is also on the verge of quitting, but realizes she doesn't want to go the way of Matt, and stays in the game, and stops hating me.

When I was in therapy, my psychologist could not understand why, growing up, I was afraid to show people how smart I was. He was truly mystified. "Why wouldn't you want people to know you're smart?" It didn't make any sense to him. I decided then to stop seeing him. If this concept was so strange to him, how could he be smart enough to understand my problems.

I have a lot of smart friends. I have friends who are smarter than me. I have friends who are as smart as me, but have ambition, discipline, and social skills to make it go much further. I have friends who are more original, more creative, are better looking, are better at getting dates, are better at getting jobs, are better at pleasing bosses, are better at so many things that I feel rather mediocre. My father and my brothers are smarter than me.

So can you please just be ok with me winning at Scrabble? You all have wives, husbands, kids, houses - I am just a single guy living in a dirty house who is good with words.

I don't mean you, I mean the party. If you're reading this, you can probably beat me at Scrabble.