The geriatric zebra, who plays Scrabble

This entry was started some time back but was never completed because Jerome had too many things in mind. Now that he is slacking off in a Taiwan airport and walked through her 12 souvenir shops with one solid hour to spare, he couldn't help but sit down to complete his post.

Word Play evoked many thoughts. Several posts earlier Jerome alluded to the documentary that described the crossword puzzle culture in the States, through the eyes of top-notch puzzle solvers who complete one in less than 5 minutes and wonder "what's up with you people" if you admit you took a whole afternoon to finish half the puzzle.

Jerome is a word freak since his Scrabble and Literati days. He can easily rattle off obscure 2-letter words like OE (a whirlwind off the Faeroe Islands) and KA (the spiritual self of a human being in Egyptian religion), and tell you the Scrabble ruling differences between USA and Singapore (QI, CH allowed here, but not across the Pacific). He can show off some "Q" words that come without "U", like QAT (a white-flowered evergreen shrub), as well as words containing no consonants at all, e.g. GLYCYLS (a radical derived from glycine).

You might wonder why anyone would accumulate such useless knowledge - like when did you ever see the word SYZYGY (the configuration of the earth, moon, and sun lying in a straight line) - written or spoken? Yet Jerome finds thrill trouncing his uninitated opponents by 300 points in a friendly match. Yup. This zebra has a gargantuan ego that needs constant massaging.

In fact he was so hot about it he start reading tip books and anagramming words around him, like SEMINAR ROOM = REMAINS MOOR. Yes. That's where we all study. And rot in the process.

His penchant in exotic words spilled over to other games, and he was pleased he could complete Bookworm Adventures in one sitting. Then, medical school started to cram up Jerome's feeble mind, and word games came to a grinding halt. Grinding indeed. Imagine the screech and the sparks coming off the wheels.

So now Jerome is sad. He cannot be sure if he still can remember the 96 2-letter words (by USA standard rules; Singapore has 110). He has been losing games to other people. His ego is deflated.

Maybe Jerome is old. He has no more drive. Yet he valiantly logged onto NY Times and challenged a Monday puzzle. He cracked his head so hard, he had to lie down in bed for the rest of the day. And he finished less than 1/3 of the puzzle.

Jerome needs to find his passion back. Maybe he will start with EK, who has admitted she is also a Scrabble freak. Of course there's always GC, who is game for a challenge anytime of the day.

Time to dig out the dictionary!