I'm chosing to accept it, because I should!

I've decided to jump on the Mama Kat bandwagon and start doing one of the weekly prompts. I'm picking #4... write about a Scrabble game that takes an ugly turn for the worst. It's not an actual happening to me... but trust me when I say, this is a true story....

(NOTE: the dialogue contained herein is a rough translation as there is no universal Cat->English dictionary currently available.)

Bubbles laid on the couch catching the late morning rays of sunshine dancing in the window. Fall was approaching, and with it, colder weather, so she and her companion, Jasper spent more of their days inside now staring at the newly snow covered mountains or, if their owners weren't there, playing Scrabble.

Scrabble doesn't come easy to cats; they aren't the best spellers and, let's face it, even WITH thumbs those tiles are hard to pick up. Yet, Bubbles and Jasper had played for years and with time comes skill. Still and often they would bicker about the correct spelling of words, but who doesn't during a Scrabble game?

As Bubbles lay purring in the sun Jasper was on the prowl and ready to play a serious game of Scrabble. As Jasper swatted at Bubbles' twitching tail she woke and grumbled, "what do you want? Don't you see how happy I am laying in the sun?" "Oh get over it, let's play Scrabble!" Jasper quipped, "The humans are gone and it's been almost all summer since we've played!" Bubbles stretched out as she stood and washed her face. "Ok, but it's your turn to get the board out from under the bed."

She watched as Jasper bounded off towards the bedrooms to headbutt the box from under the master bed. Being old pros at this, by the time Bubbles reached the bedroom, Jasper was just finishing pulling all the pieces out of the box. "Wooz turn ish it to go firrsh?" Jasper said with his mouth full of tiles for the bag. "Mine, remember you lead off last time with 'burdz'?" "Oh yeah!," Jasper laughed as he tossed the last tile into the bag, "that was a hard start!"

The two cats took turns drawing their letters and carefully placing them on the holder in front of them. After their letters were drawn Bubbles hunched down to take a closer look at what she had to start with. "Well," she thought, "I'm definitely going to win this one with letters like these!" and quietly started off the game with n-o-m-z. "Good one!" said Jasper as he took a look at his letters. He gave out a little sigh of a purr and resigned to playing the only vowels he had to put c-h-e-e off of the "z" creating "cheez." Turns went back and forth and as it always does, the board filled up and became challenging pretty quickly. Unlike human brains, kitty brains love odd letters like "x", "z", and "q". These are always in high demand and valued even more by kitties than their human counterparts.

After 45 minutes Bubbles was far in the lead and instead of worrying in between turns, she took the time to give herself mini baths and polish her beautiful dark fur. Jasper, on the other hand, didn't like the predicament he was in and fretted and hissed at his letters between turns.

They were down to the final 20 or so letters left and as Bubbles cleaned her tail, unknown to her, the tension was reaching it's peak. "WILL YOU QUIT THAT??" hissed Jasper. Bubbles' fur stood up on end as she jumped up ready to attack. "What the hell is your problem Jasper? You've never cared this much about a game before, what's the big deal today?" "YOU are the big deal! Sitting there like a queen, cleaning your fur, acting like you are better than me! What's YOUR problem huh Bubbles??" Bubbles didn't even know what to say to this so she swatted Jasper in the face for the first time in their lives. "'Sitting like a queen indeed!' You can take your stupid letters and go play by yourself in the litter box for all I care! I'm finished here!" She went to run out of the room past Jasper but he was as fast as she was and, with outstretched claws, lunged at her neck as she went by. It was a flurry of fur and claws. Hissing and fitts filled the house as the tumbling fight made it's way down the hall, down the stairs, and into the living room. Jasper had the upperpaw for most of the fight but he came on fast and strong and was starting to wear out. Bubbles wasn't as strong but the old girl had some fight left in her and she was going to see it out until the end.

Suddenly, and they both heard it, there was a car in the driveway. Jasper lept to his feet and up to the bedroom yelling "STALL STALL STALL!!" all the way up. Bubble's didn't have time to fix her mangled fur but planted herself right in the doorway. As soon as the door opened up and the humans walked in there she was, purring and rubbing against the legs of both humans trying to get bast this furry blockade. "Meow? Meow? Meow?" she called up to them, "please think I'm hungry and go into the kitchen with me!" she thought. It worked, "ok sweetie, let's get you some food! Where's Jasper, is he hungry too? Jasper!! Come here my sweet little boy!!" The humans called as they followed Bubbles to the kitchen. Suddenly Jasper showed up at the door of the kitchen too and Bubbles knew that he had, at the very least, shoved everything under the bed until it could be put away more completely. After filling their food bowls the humans went up to change into the pajamas that the cats so loved to snuggle up to them in. Just as Jasper and Bubbles were about to claim their spots on the couch they heard from the bedroom, "What is this Scrabble tile doing in my slipper??" They looked at each other and laughed a laugh that only a kitty could understand. All was forgiven because the joke was on the humans.

THE END