Zen is not a scrabble word

i grew up very poor! my mom was a single momma and worked really, really, really hard to make things work.  she worked 3 jobs while i was growing up, day and night! I'm not saying any of this out of sorrow, i swear, i LOVE my life and i admire my mother for everything and i am actually thankful that i grew up this way. 

okay, so because we were so f-ing poor, we did not have television, or a telephone..he he, it's funny now!  it was just erin (our golden retriever), my mom and i.  my mother, who is very intelligent, would make me play scrabble ALL the time! we played every weekend and during the week, it seemed like we played everyday.  we also played boggle.  at the time, growing up, i was like "dang mom this is soooo lame, cant we just get a tv or something?" i would say, "lets play something else" and she would say "we can play scrabble, boggle, uno or we can walk the dog". "ugggg, scrabble it is"

so there i was  7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,and so on.  playing with the big girls, my mom and her best friends. They would drink wine, eat cheese, sing their hearts out to bonnie rait, tina turner and smokey robinson. they would make words like hexapla, hexosan, teocalli(these are actually  in the official scrabble dictionary). "what the hell is hexapla, are you serious?" i would protest. "when six texts are in parallel columns, silly girl", one of them would remark.  "ohh okay, yeah, sweat, thanks this is awesome", i would complain, never getting the reaction i was hoping for. every once in a while, i would win. really i would!  so whenever i actually won a game, i would write the date and the score in my mom's dictionary (she still has it).

so throughout the years, i have made the people in my life play with me.  i purchased a travel scrabble a few years ago and i make the boys play with me on fires, when of course were not saving babies and churches and all that good stuff that the movies portray! really, i've never saved a baby or a church! anyway, if you work for me, you HAVE to play!

now, andy and i play all the time! it's so funny, he LOVES to play.  i'm not bragging, i promise, but i always beat him, by like 50, 60 points.  then, the other night we played, like we always do. i kind of have a "bank" of words i always fall back on, like words with the letter Z.  zen, is one of these words.  sometimes you are not sure if a word is REALLY a word, like dude, shit, shat etc. i made zen, this amounted to 22 points and moved on.  i didn't bother to look it up because it's a word, i use it all the time.  this was our closest game EVER, i won by only 10 points.  i say "good job babe, your getting so good!, im proud of you". we laugh, kiss and go to sleep.

about midnight andy says "babe are you awake?"

"i am now, why?", i said

"there is something that wanted to tell you earlier but couldn't"

oh great i think, i knew it, this was just too good to be true! he has an STD or he has another child somewhere, or he cheated or lied or looked at porn on my million $ lap top and now it has a virus! 

"what?", i ask, all bitchy

"zen, is not a scrabble word", he says in the most sympathetic voice

"WHAT!!!!!????? zen IS most certainly a word!", as i fly out of bed

"no, i promise, i looked it up"

"why didn't you tell me THEN?"

"because i know you like that word..............so actually i won"

so, alas my friends, zen is not a scrabble word :(