Last Saturday I found myself eating a poor excuse of a frittata with my seven year old. We were waiting for the ten year old to finish his piano lesson and decided to pass the time at a nearby restaurant.
The restaurant in an attempt to be cool in some hipster-millenial-woke way that I don’t understand on account of my advanced years had a selection of board games for patrons to play as they waited interminably for their imposter frittata to arrive.
The seven year old wanted to play ‘Build-Up’, a scrabble like game that wasn’t quite Scrabble. Perhaps this was the theme of the restaurant: imposter food and games. I said yes, as the alternative was to play Pokemon cards, a game which I am not good at because it makes no sense and there are no actual rules. I am always losing my Charizard and Articuno, and I believe that this is because the children lie to me and take advantage of my ignorance. Not with Scrabble baby. My brain has not been rewired because of excessive screen time: I can spell,I can tell the time, I can focus on things for more than 5 minutes. Build Up? Bring it on.
Our game of fake Scrabble started well enough. Jam. Man. Om. I was overjoyed that my child was able to spell these words, a clear sign that the annual fees we paid his school was not an entire waste.
P-U-B.
‘What’s a pub?’
‘A place where you can go without your children and enjoy a drink.’
‘Sounds boring.’
‘Wait till you have kids.’
After much pondering, the child added an E to the end of PUB.
‘P-U-B-E.’ He crowed loud enough for the entire restaurant to turn and look.
‘Oh wait! Let me add an S. P-U-B-E-S.’
I’ll admit, I choked a little on the fake frittata.
‘Where did you hear that word? Do you know what pubes are? When I get my hands on your brother-’
‘Puuuuuuube Amma. It rhymes with tube?’ Insert eye-roll.
I recover in a fashion worthy of a Ponn Vandu Choice Award ‘Indeed. It does. That’s what it means also. Rhyming words allowed.’
‘Why, what are pubes?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I bet they’re something.’
‘Nothing you need to worry about for a while.’
‘Can I use pubes to make something more?’
More choking on frittata.
‘What?’
‘On the board. Can I use the E of Pubes?’
‘Sure. Sure you can.’
G-A-E.
‘That’s not a word.’
‘It is too.’
‘No it’s not.’
‘It’s when boys love boys and girls love girls.’
‘That’s G-A-Y. ’
‘Spellings don’t matter’.
You’re wrong, spellings DO matter baby. Who you love doesn’t matter.’
We play without incident for a few rounds and add some stupendous words to the board: RUN, TIN and KNIT. For some reason my formidable Scrabble skills have deserted me. I have the vocabulary of a four year old. Well, now my seven year old.
‘Are abbreviations allowed?’
‘Sure they are.’
’Can I make S-E-X?’
Universe, what is going on here?
‘Sex is the short form of seconds Amma.’
‘That’s SEC.’
I think the school should refund part of the fees.
‘You know what? How about a round of Pokemon cards?’
Menaka Raman
@menakaraman
The writer’s philosophy is: if there’s no blood, don’t call me