Never Underestimate Kids 🙆🏽♀️
Three new kids joined our Scrabble team recently and I don't know whether I should be happy or sad. These kids are quite young — probably between 8-12 years.
The first day we met them, we were excited to have “kids” we could “school” on the board. Alas! If only we knew.
Today, we invited them to join us in the adult section. They've been playing together (we felt that they are “kids” — read that as “inexperienced” — and , therefore, need their space).
One of our opens players volunteered to teach them how to play professional Scrabble. 🤣
“Come let me teach you how to play professional Scrabble”. He said confidently.
I watched them stroll quietly to the large hall that's reserved for experienced players.
None of the kids uttered a word.
Our brother-teacher started with teaching them how to make good moves.
“Scrabble isn't just a game of words. It's a game of strategy. You have to maximise the letters on your rack to rack up more points”.
These three kids nodded. 🤣🤣🤣
“Okay, let's play. Three of you can share one rack while I play against you”.
That's how we ended with two “strong” teams. Team one with three eagled-eyed kids. And team two with a single, confident, adult human male.
“We'd use a timer. I'd set 20 minutes each”
“Okay, sir”, they replied meekly.
Two minutes into the game and I could see our brother-teacher sweating. Not only did these kids jam him with a bingo. But they were leading with 75 extra points.
The entire club came over to watch them play. These kids finished in less than 15 minutes while our brother-man was struggling to keep his time from running beyond 18 minutes.
They played three more rounds. He won none. When he finished the last round, he blurted out “No, I'm done. I'm not playing with them again”.
I decided to console him, “Sorry, brother. It's just a game. You can see this as an opportunity to improve your skill”.
“Tufia! I can never lose to kids again”.
On my way out, I heard one of the kids say, “Auntie, we still want to play. Would you like to join us?”
Me when I turned back to realise that they were actually talking to me:
What was that thing a kid was good at that made you avoid them in order to maintain your steeze?