I admit that where my great-aunt Agatha is concerned, I have occasionally exercised poor judgment. I once called her cat-- out loud-- what I generally only call him in my mind. It's a name you'd never see printed in the newspaper and, (I'm guessing), probably aren't right now.

Last spring I was mowing her terrace, pulled a muscle, borrowed a daub of her 'Hot/Ice Arthritis-Strength Sports Creme', then returned the tube to the bathroom-- in the exact spot where she normally keeps her toothpaste.

Then there was the time I took her to see the monster trucks, the time we visited the monkey house at the zoo, and the time we went to dinner at a place that sounded to me like a hoity-toity restaurant, but turned out to be a nudie bar.

As bad as those lapses may have been, none can compare to the monstrous error I made when I accepted her challenge to play a game of Scrabble. Imagine a one hundred pound man who can't skate, signing on for roller derby. Scrabble with Agatha was far more brutal. She kicked my sorry, semi-literate butt. This woman lives to scrabble. She's good at it and she cheats well.

I figured it'd be a game I'd be decent at. After all, I work with words everyday. Some of my best friends are words. The problem is that the words I work with are 'normal' words-- ones that people actually use. Agatha, on the other hand, was pulling out nuggets like 'caciket', 'danglier', 'nychthemeron', 'ornater', 'trippant', and 'reneguing'. Each time I would question whether such terms even existed, she would find them for me in one of two sources: her three-thousand page Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, or in a smaller dictionary designed specifically for Scrabble. As I found out later, a more accurate description of it would have been 'a smaller dictionary designed specifically to help Scrabble players cheat!

I hadn't really suspected anything until she plopped down a row of tiles that spelled 'indicial'. As usual, I challenged it and as usual, she responded by finding it-- with a definition and everything-- toward the back of her Scrabble book.

"Why", I wondered, "would a word that begins with 'i' be listed in the back of the dictionary? Shouldn't it be near the middle, between the 'h's and the 'j's?"

When Agatha went to the kitchen to make tea, I snooped. Surprisingly, all of her most outrageous entries-- 'nychthemeron' and 'caciket', for instance-- were obscure but legitimate words. Others-- like 'reneguing' and 'danglier' sounded real but were no where to be found in the official Webster's compendium. The only place they appeared was in a supplement at the end of the gaming dictionary, under the heading: 'Plausible Phonies'.

Most plausible phonies were misspellings or mis-conjugations of real words, ('reneguing', 'abusages', ), or non-existent compounds, ('hatstand', 'coalmine'). Others were pure fiction-- words that never existed until unscrupulous Scrabble players made them up and sent them in, ('indicial', 'rejigs', 'yokings'.)

When she returned with her tea, she responded to my charge with a two-pronged defense. Her first claim went like this:

"What is this?", she asked, holding her Scrabble book aloft. "It's a dictionary. Any word that is printed in this book could therefore be said to appear in a dictionary and is therefore a legitimate word."

Her second argument was Biblical:
"When Moses came down from the mountain, he never said anything like: 'Here are the two stone tablets upon which the Lord God Almighty has carved the Ten Commandments. And over there, in a big pile in the desert, are the eight-hundred ninety-five thousand other tablets upon which he has carved all the vocabulary words he wants us to use.' Therefore, it is logical to assume that each and every word-- whether it's listed in Webster's or not-- was simply made up by some human being, at some time in history. I am a human being. Therefore, a word is a word if I say it's a word, so buzz-off!."

"Fine!", I snorted. "Two can play at that game!" With that, I banged my tiles onto the board, spelling a word I had just made up: "Scrabboozler", a cross between Scrabble and bamboozle. It means 'a-great-Aunt-who-cheats-at-board-games'.

After a few rounds, I had to admit that Scrabble is a much more fun when one is allowed to conjure new words. Another beneficial aspect to this manner of play is that it allows for the creation of words to describe situations that deserve to have their own words, but don't. By the end of our game, I had come from behind to almost-win, thanks to a host of brand-new words like these:

Automopeeping-- A behavior exhibited by people who are in too much of a rush to brush the snow off their cars properly. Leaving the rest of their vehicle buried in snow, they drive blind through rush hour traffic, peeping out through a tiny square they brushed on the middle of the driver's-side windshield. This phenomena is also known as 'glaucarma'.

Banktimism-- the optimistic delusion that your deposit will clear the bank before the large check you wrote will.

Blalking-- Walking slowly through busy, narrow spaces; blocking them. Blalkers are often found in packs of two-to-four. They are the people you get stuck behind in grocery store aisles and airport concourses.

Buhdwhoozies-- From 'Bud' and 'woozy', it's that woozy feeling that causes drunken football fans to spill beer down the backs of the people sitting in front of them.

Buhdwhetties, What you get when some drunken idiot spills beer down your back at a football game. (The first time this occurs can also be referred to as a Bud-tism.)

Carsmetics-- Cosmetics, applied by drivers in rush hour traffic. Users of carsmetics are often also automopeepers.

Citiots-- That's us. It's a term that derives from the belief held by many politicians that the citizens of this country couldn't navigate fork to mouth or change their own underwear without some government program to help them do so.

Curtaseewok-- from 'courtesy' and 'walk', describes taking a stroll out of range of co-workers when one is having certain digestive difficulties. The curtaseewok's evil cousin, (a term that I believe is already in common use), is 'Comet-Trailing'.

Dentricramming-- The practice of flossing only during the two days prior to a dental appointment.

Dentrivoidance-- The deliberate ignoring of reminder cards from one's dentist.

Escalwaition-- The practice of standing, rather than stepping or walking up or down escalators. Escalwaitionists are often also Blalkers.

Flushlessness-- A water bill reduction technique that is employed almost exclusively by people who live alone.

Headspeech-- What is generally heard on 'Meet The Depressed', 'This Week Without David Brinkley' and all the other Sunday morning network news shows.

Hypnonumeratosis-- An hypnotic effect unique to elevators, which causes the occupants to stand transfixed, staring at the little numbers above the door.

Obviousity-- A continued and unquestioned restatement of the obvious. This trait is exhibited by all professional athletes during pre-game interviews, and is characterized by the oft-heard quote: "We just have to get out there and score more points than the other team." Well DUH!

Plaguerize-- As opposed to 'plagiarize', 'plaguerize' derives from 'plague' and is pronounced with the same hard 'g' sound. It is a form of delusional brown-nosing in which one believes that their presence at work is indispensable, regardless of how contagious they may be. People who plaguerize insist on coming in sick, even though they will likely spread the plague among their co-workers. A related term, 'Projectile Plaguerizing', refers to those who come to work sick and cough on people.

Retropedular Reclairification-- The backpedaling that occurs after a political candidate makes a spectacularly idiotic statement.

Stadiugging-- a communal mugging in which everyone in the community-- even those who never attend sporting events-- are forced at gun-point to pay for stadiums.

Endies-- Refers to the words contained in the last sentence to appear in the far lower-right corner of a newspaper page.