At a Snail’s Pace

I hate Scrabble. It gives me a headache. My wife, who is an avid player, knows not to ask me to draw seven tiles — mostly because I’m so bad at figuring out what to do with them. “ ‘And’? That’s the best you can do?” But I’m a good sport, and so when invited to play by friends who are unaware of my inability to think beyond one-syllable conjunctions, it takes about three or four moves (which means, for me, about an hour and a half) before I ask if anyone has an Aspirin.

There are lots of activities I’m not good at, believe me. But being not good at Scrabble is the one that inspires people to say, “But you’re a writer.” Nobody says that about my slalom skiing or my pie crusts. Scrabble may be the only thing that writers are supposed to be good at — aside from writing, I mean, and even that’s not a given. I am of the view, however, that writers are not the farm team you want to tap when picking your all‑star Scrabble squad. I bet that Mary Shelley and Thomas Hardy...