I’ve been knee deep in National Novel Writing Month prep work the last week or so, and as such I offer you a little something from my past. This piece was originally posted over at the Six Sentences social network in December 2008.
My faulty spine and my grin I get from my father, and the freckles and knobby knees come from mom’s side. I absorbed foul language assisting dad with tractor repairs and woodworking projects. The fine art of cursing, of personal and specific verbal attack, I learned playing Scrabble with my mother.
Legend has it, as soon as I showed even passing recognition of letters and words, a Scrabble board was put in front of me. Y’see, mom loves the game and dad doesn’t. This was her way of ensuring someone to play with as the years went by, and it has worked marvelously. But, back to the cursing.
In order to level the playing field, she would spot me 50 points. This lasted up to the age of 15, when we played the fateful game that signified I had adult vocabulary powers. Incidentally, it is also the day I heard the story of my birth.
It was just another game of scrabble on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Mom had a glass of wine, I a can of cola, and we shared a bowl of Hawkins Cheezies as we played. One of us, not sure who, had placed the word ‘log’ smack dab between the triple word squares at the top of the board. I had been sitting on the Z tile for a couple of rounds, and had finally gotten some vowels to go with it. In what family history recorded as the best scrabble move ever, I placed ‘zoo’ on one side of log, and ‘ical’ on the other to spell zoological. Two triple words and a bonus for using all seven tiles. This is as close to a royal flush as Scrabble gets. It was also as close to a stroke as I ever want my mother get. She tallied the points, slammed the pen down and tells me:
“Jesus Christ! TWO triple word scores and a goddamn bingo! Two weeks late, 14 hours of labour, 23 inches long and shoulders damn near as wide as they are now and THIS is what you do to me?!?!? I brought you into this world, and BY JESUS I am NOT afraid to take you out!!!!”
I think that’s the proudest she has ever been of me.
I giggle! Nice mummy son piece.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by 3S_stories, Michelle Evans. Michelle Evans said: A mother son story… @3S_stories: How I learned to curse. #fridayflash – http://tinyurl.com/ygnbumt [...]
Builds well going over the basics of the game into the setting including snacks. Mom character is very strong from the game to the amusing dialogue. Brief and to the point. Nice.
Also, there’s a repeated word at the end of the 4th paragraph.
Doh! Many thanks for the proofread – fixed.
Aw! That was sweet in an obnoxious-mom sort of way. Nice work!
I banked a few for Nanowrimo too. Hope to see you around!
Heh, as a Scrabble fan I couldn’t help but gasp in awe at that word’s score!
The mum character (I am on the wrong side of the pond to feel comfortable spelling it “mom”) is very likeable in her outburst
Harr! Hearkened me back to pantsing me mum in cribbage after she taught me in hospital after emergency appendectomy. Mothers ya gotta love em. fun write trev.
Games – the best way to learn. Playing crib with Grandma is how I learned to count by twos!
Hah! You packed a lot in this short piece. Nice.
Sounds like a good mom to me! Enjoyed it.
Nothing makes mama prouder than to be out witted by her effing baby boy! LOVED this story, Trev.
Haha, very good! Nothing like a heated game of Scrabble to bring the best out of people!
Damn! This was effing good! Reminded me of playing cards with my grandma.
hehe! The only thing that would make this better is if it was a true story! Loved it.
Mother-loving hilarious! (I see from your bookshelf that we like some of the same writers.)