Sig Other's Scrabble Bitch

There are times, late at night, when Sig Other is glued to his computer and ignores everything else around him.  And sometimes, late at night, when Sig Other is in such a mode, I will hear him from across the house scream, “That BITCH!!!”  And I know that he is talking about my mother.

This is not the result of some overly protective move on Sig Other’s part.  Its not like Mom and I had a fight or that she is overstepping her mother-in-law bounds on some household issue.  No.  Sig Other and Mom are engaged in war.  But it isn’t your typical mother-in-law vs son-in-law battle.  It’s a word war.  An online, all-out, to-the-death word war called “SCRABBLE.”  It is possible that the two of them were responsible for the shutdown of Facebook Scrabble. 

For a long time, I suspected them both of cheating.  Sig Other would mumble, "That word is bullshit" under his breath as he went to the online dictionary to check it out.  It seems impossible that could both get so many seven letter bingos, could have such consistently high scores, could parry at such lofty heights.  And yet they do.  They are a perfect Scrabble match – each highly competitive and driven to find the highest scoring word in spite (or because of) their draw. 

At first, Mom would call and I’d think she was actually interested in me - how I was, what I was doing, what the kids were up to.  But then I realized that what she really wanted to know was why Sig Other hadn’t taken his turn yet.  We’d chit-chat for a moment or two and then she’d say in her sweetest voice, “Is your husband home? I see he hasn’t taken his turn yet in our game.  Is everything ok?”  And if he was home, and if he knew who I was talking to, he’d immediately chime in, “Tell that bitch I’m coming after her – she’s not gonna beat me – no seven letter bingo I can’t handle.”  It was a little uncomfortable. 

But if there’s one thing that I’ve learned about marriage (and I’ve certainly had enough “at bats” to have learned something), it’s that we cannot be all things to our mates.  So if Sig Other is to have a Scrabble Bitch, I guess better my mother than some hot young word bimbo.