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Before I begin this whine, I need to preface it with a solid declaration that I love word games.
Love. Them.
I love Scrabble, and spelling bees (obviously), and as of today my New York Times crossword completion streak stands at 625 days. That is one year, eight months, and three weeks that I have earned a gold star for completing the puzzle on the day it was published. And my personal solving standards mean I can ask anyone within earshot (Husband) for help on esoteric sports names, but no Googling allowed.
So I not only love word games, but I'm pretty good at them.
But this new word game? The one everyone in the known universe is now playing and bragging about on Facebook and Instagram and who-knows-where else?
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| My usual reaction |
In case you are the single person in the world who has not jumped on the Wordle train, the rules of the free-for-now* game are that you have six chances to guess a five-letter word. When you enter the first word, the game lets you know if you've guessed any letters in the right spot (green!), any letters that are not in the right spot (yellow), and any letters that are wrong (grey or black). Then you have five more guesses. At the end of the six attempts, you have the option to share your results with the world.
Several far-flung MomQueenBee family were early Wordle adopters and started a text thread so that we could share our results among ourselves. Now I know that at a few minutes after 6 a.m. my text notification will chime with news that the East Coast contingent of our text thread has discovered the word. The Central Standard participants come in a couple of hours later, and the rest will check in before the day is over.
So why does this thing that combines words and family and should be my very favorite thing in the world having me clenching my fists and shaking my hairbrush?
Because I don't win.
I have never once, in the month or so that we've been doing this, had the low score in the family. Others have routinely guessed the word in three tries, sometimes even two (which, HOW?). I hover around the four-to-six guess range, and twice have failed to get the word at all.
How can this even be? I am by far not the sharpest knife in this drawer of sharp knives, but I am the only one who makes her living with words. I SHOULD BE WINNING.
So here's what I've decided: I just know too darned many words. Check, for example, the screenshot from a recent day above.
That's my unsuccessful grid in the middle. I had correctly guessed three of the five letters correctly on the first try! Woohoo! This was going to be the day I got it in two tries!
But, spoiler alert, I did not. My whiney "Sometimes I hate this game" was that morning's loving declaration to my children.
The correct word was SHARD. Do you know how many words could be correct for those final two guesses? How about SHARK? And SHARP? And SHARE? Earlier in the game, before the H fell into place, how about SCARF? Or STARK? or SWARM?
So my rationalization of my ineptitude with this game is this: It's a word game, but it's also a game of luck, and I'm not very good at games of luck although I am a champion at overthinking. I do love having all the Boys and Lovely Girls checking in every day, though, so it's well worth being at the bottom of the Wordle pile.
When the Boys were young and of competitive sports-playing age we always sent them off to their games with the same instructions:
Play hard. Play fair. Have a good time. It's just a game.
We omitted the customary "Play to win." because we wanted them to be good sports and to enjoy the competition but to not spend much time thinking about winners and losers. (The dreaded QueenBee lack-of-speed gene did not work in their favor.)
Now it's my turn to remind myself.
Play hard. Play fair. Have a good time. Smile when you hear that chime.
It's just a game.
*The New York Times recently bought rights to this game for a bazillion dollars, so odds are good it won't be free forever.
