Scrabble Wars

I've never felt so sadistic or so good. With each deft movement of my hands, they would wince. I slowed up a little bit, to prolong their agony. It was like watching a window break in slow motion. You know you've done it - stringing out someone else's pain, watching their spirits crumble... or not. It's a somewhat regular occurrence up here. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Like most things, it started innocently enough. Some good-natured ribbing, the occasional barb tossed at editorial board. A past editor-in-chief took it to a whole new level when he invoked the "the guys I used to play with were really good" trash-talk. It had to stop. Dissing me is one thing, but when you say your boys can beat mine, you have crossed the line in the dust covering the newsroom floor.

The wild-west duel music never played. We drew anyways. If it weren't for toilets, he may have pulled it out. 73 points and the win. Take that, Van Haren. I remember watching him slowly lay down "refiles" to win weeks later. Payback really sucks.

We have enjoyed many scrabble bouts in the newsroom, and I hope we see a good many more. I'm no journalist, and the only thing I've learned for sure is the learning curve is steep up here. We've made errors. And we definitely frustrate each other. Scrabble sadism is one thing, but I'd bet we've collectively had enough violent visions of each other to make Saw 4 - bonus footage and all.

Yet we stick it out. Our biggest strength isn't our content. Or our design. Or our copy editors. After the visions of head-bashing dance out of our heads, we stick it out. There will always be tension - this is life, after all. We do our best to keep it in perspective. The newspaper is important. We know. We've heard it a lot. But compared to what?

I'll be gone soon. I won't remember misspelling a headline. But I still plan to play "vexation" against my former cohorts as regularly as possible. We have some of the best journalists in the school up here, but it's important we don't hold each other up to superhuman standards. This doesn't mean it's no big deal to make mistakes, but we can't be angry or judgmental. It's the only way we can improve - or just get by. So far this semester, for better and for worse, we have held each other up when it mattered. We've stuck it out.

It's only fair, to us and to each other. We don't know everything. The AP stylebook is thick. Probably two inches, maybe more. Even the best writers are afraid of "quixotic." It's worth 100 points, easy.

-- Joshua Rabon
Asst. Online Editor