The Longest Game of Word Feud

"How are you? … Happy Friday!"

I got messages like these every week from a person I don't know who lived in Arizona. He worked at the University of Phoenix. Not the online school. Though they may be related.

"I'm cool. I'm hungry, though. I may have to eat lunch before 12 today!" I punched the buttons quickly and returned to my boring work computer screen.

I had been working for a Financing company for over six months on a permanent basis. Sometimes it was really interesting, figuring out how the numbers fit together, making sure the customers got the funds. Its never dull when someone wants something from you that their business depends upon. Then again, there were also whole days sometimes where I was scraping up the filing and scanning and copying and dragging it to the copy room along with my cell phone. If I was going to be that bored, I may as well be connected to the world.

Jaime777 played HE for 13 points

And the world of Word Feud was the best place to waste time.

"How long have we been playing this game? I mean, all games considered," I threw a couple files on top of the filing cabinet, and waited for his response.

Just over a year I think. You were working at a bank when we started."

"Holy cow! I think we deserve an award or something!"

Jaime777, whose name I didn't really know, was 29 year old with two kids, a suicidal ex-wife, and was himself a former marine. He was half Mexican, spoke fluent Spanish, and appeared to have a lovely complexion.

JLEdna played PERSONAE for 97 points

He sucked at Word Feud.

I suck at Word Feud."

I laughed, while copying my fifth set of documents.

"They should give you an award for longest losing streak."I knew I shouldn't be counting, but there was nothing to count. Jaime777 had not won a single game against me. I literally aways won.

In fact, being literal had always been something I was good at. I had pet peves when it came to grammar, both spoken and written. Reading poorly spelled posts on social media cracked me up to no end. I had been known to laugh until I cried at the ebonics I found on the profiles of wayward friends of friends. Spelling, grammar, and phonetics were an ingrained rulebook for me and I couldn't understand why no one else seemed to have it. It made me a good student. It made me a terrible teacher. And sometimes I think it made me a bitch.

I don't really keep any other games going anymore." I was almost finished scanning. Then would come the hole punching.

I always have more than one game going, but I guess I've been playing with you the longest." I pictured him at a big desk, meeting with prospective students and their parents. I pictured him hiding the phone under his desk, it buzzing with every obscure word I played. The copier hummed beside me and then jammed, disrupting my day dream.

I can't stand it when people spell things wrong. I can't stand it when they do it consistently. When they do something that blatantly wrong over and over, it makes those of us who realize the wrong-ness cock our heads and wonder… is this person all there? They must not know they're wrong… how sad. And then you politely don't say anything about it. But somewhere in the back of your head you're thinking "They aren't very smart, if they think that." That, of course, is how lots of opinions are formed.

The last person I dated had a horrible habit of cutting off the adverbial form of "serious" when describing things. As in, "I didn't take that inverview very serious." Which he didn't, of course, since he didn't have a job the entire time we were together. He continually replaced the word "moocher," as in someone who begs or scrounges, with the word "smoocher," which I KEPT TELLING HIM meant a person who kisses or cuddles amorously. In fact, on Valentines Day, I woke up to a lovely handwritten note underwhich were some print ads where I saw he had been practicing various word spellings, trying to figure out which was right before he wrote them in the card.

This unnerved me. I just couldn't date someone, much less marry someone, who couldn't spell the word "THEIR" without practicing on a scrap of newsprint. And what the hell was I doing with someone that STUPID anyway? Someone who didn't have a job. Someone who was 26, my same age! Someone who asked me for gas money. Someone who thought corporate America was "a bunch of BS," or "really bad," because they didn't know any other adjectives to express how they felt.

I balked. In the last year or so, while playing Word Feud with Jaime777, I had won EVERY SINGLE GAME. I had never lost. I had won by margins of hundreds of points. And you know something weird? My dating life had the exact same win-loss record. I was just SO MUCH BETTER than that, and yet I was willfully letting myself be put into ridiculous situations with someone who would never even be considered at my place of work. I mean, honestly, didn't I have two pets? A chihuahua and a boyfriend? I had always been better, even when I thought I wasn't good enough. Even back when we had started going out, and he had his parents money, and went out to clubs literally every single weekend. I was holed up in my apartment, saving my money, going to work every Monday through Friday, paying my bills and my rent, cooking my own food, WINNING the longest game of Word Feud.

Jaime777 played MICE for 9 points.

I guess it's just fun to play against someone you know can't win. Its fun to win easily sometimes. Maybe it’s the predictability of it all. Like I know what will happen if I play this game, so I'll play it because there'll be no surprises.

But I was changing. I was getting older. I couldn't play the same games anymore. I needed a challenge. I needed stimulation.

JLEdna played FASTING for 76 points.

I needed someone on my level.