I'm just going to enjoy some garins while I plant some chuirot

After an 80-plus-hour workweek, often the last thing my husband wants to do is go out again. While we usually go out on Saturdays, he prefers to stay in on Friday nights and Sundays.

Since our New York City apartment is roughly the same size as the living room of the condo we sold back in Ohio, it's tough to each do our separate thing. Plus, since weekends are the only time we really have to spend together, we've gotten into a pretty predictable routine of playing a word game - Scrabble or Upwords - either Friday or Sunday or sometimes even both days.

Because we're both headstrong first-born children, we're competitive by nature. And that competitiveness is especially apparent when we make a bet on the game's outcome. Sometimes we get creative, but the usual bet is that the loser has to give the winner a 10- to 20-minute back rub.

And with that on the line, each of us scrutinizes each other's every choice of word and every play. We've learned that while I have a more extensive vocabulary - naturally, as a writer should - Brent has a more interesting interpretation of the English language, meaning he simply makes words up, then spends time trying to convince me that they're real words. When he's proven wrong after I hand him a dictionary, he then attempts to convince me that our dictionary is outdated, and the words he wants to use were recently coined. (It's gotten so ridiculous that I've actually bought a new, official Scrabble dictionary to squash any of his ideas of new words. It comes in the mail soon.)

During our most recent Scrabble game, when it was apparent that I would win after I used up all of my letters spelling the word "pioneers," Brent got especially creative and hilarious, so I had to write down his last four pathetic attempts to get some major catch-up points.

These are examples of words and their supposed meanings that Brent attempted to play in our most recent Scrabble game:

garin: a type of strawberry

chia: a hairstyle, like a fro

chuirot: a type of grass, like crab grass

cbox: a gaming system, like the x-box

Even after nixing all of these words, Brent actually managed to catch up in score a little bit, making the last few plays crucial. When it came to be his turn, he decided to take a bathroom break.

AND HE TOOK HIS SLATE AND LETTERS WITH HIM TO THE BATHROOM.

At first, I thought he was kidding. But then he proceeded to continue to the bathroom with his letters.

Let's dissect this decision: What, if anything, would I have done differently if I had peeked at his letters? Each of us had the last few letters available, so I knew which ones he had by virtue of which letters had yet to be played. The number of letters available is written directly on the board. Did he think I would swap some of my letters for his? I'm pretty sure he would have noticed he no longer had the only "x." And even if he didn't right away, he would definitely have noticed had I tried to play it on a triple word square.

In the end, it didn't matter what Brent did because I won... but am still waiting for that winning back rub!