My friend Gina teaches 4th grade. One of the activities the class enjoys is playing the game Boggle. That's where you have a board with a bunch of letters in random order, and you create as many words as you can using the letters that are next to each other, in a set amount of time. Gina has told her class tales about a legendary hero who can out-boggle anyone; this amazing being can write down words faster than a speeding bullet; leap over other players with a single bound . . . you get the idea. So the class decided to challenge this superhuman boggle player to a game. The problem is, tales of the legend have been exaggerated. How do I know? Because, like Neo in The Matrix, it is I. I am The One.
Only, see, I'm not. I mean, maybe in my younger days, when I spoke so quickly that only hummingbirds could understand me, and finished essay tests in school before my fellow classmates had picked up their pens, I could jot down quite a few words in a friendly game of Boggle. But now I'm like an old gunslinger, not so quick on the draw. And those kids have been practicing Boggle all school year. I haven't played for years.
Until tonight. My son Dustin brought out the game, and I played against him and his girlfriend Dani. I won the first game. But then, for game 2, we weren't allowed to use 3-letter words. This is the same handicap Gina has proposed for me when I face her class in the Boggle Battle.
I valiantly scribble all the 4-letter words I could find, as the grains of sand in the hourglass quickly fell. At the end of the round, I had . . . lost.
So yes, I'm scared. Those kids very well might crush me. What would Mr. Anderson think?
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