Estate sales and Scrabble tournaments...

So I've discovered something about myself today:

I am the LEAST COMPETITIVE person I know.

If I were a bacterium competing for food and a leg (cilia?) up in the proverbial slime pool that was early life on this planet, I would be the bacterium groveling to the side saying, "Oh no, after you, I insist." Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, mind you. I happen to get along every day without much issue.
That is, until you throw me amongst a bunch of strangers who want one thing and one thing only: to win.


The ad said "Estate Sale", but it should've read "Ravenous and callous strangers filling your dead grandparents house and elbowing each other in the neck for a chance to buy a used chafing dish." All I could read was "Star Trek and Star Wars memorabilia", and I suppose that's why I felt more comfortable than I should in wanting to see what all the fuss was about.

No. Just... no. Never again. 

It was almost exactly like what you see on those TV shows about hoarders. Room after room, floor after floor of stuff, piled almost to the ceiling. The stagnant odor of 30 years and 30,000 packs of cigarettes. Precious Moments figurines staring sadly as you meandered across the rust-colored carpet. An attic with a tucked away dark room that looked like it hadn't been touched in decades. A young man with no teeth organizing junk into piles in the garage that were selling for $10 a piece. Being hassled by people for picking up items they had "already claimed."
Well, I thought, at least I'm getting out of the house. New experiences. Staring down my own mortality with a cheerful if a bit manic smile while browsing over a pool table covered in eighteen Star Trek: TNG calendars from 1992 still shrink wrapped in plastic. Right?
Uh... sure. 

I drove away without buying anything and promptly returned home to think about my life.

And then there was the Scrabble Tournament.
I don't play Scrabble. I don't even play Words with Friends- not because I particularly don't want to, but because I don't play any games in general. I'm an extremely boring person that way. The only card game I've ever thoroughly enjoyed playing was a rousing round of Cards Against Humanity (really shows you my personality, huh?). 
I won't describe the fiasco in detail, but let me just tell you something you might find useful later on:
Don't screw around with serious Scrabble players. They will eat you alive.

All that aside, I did get to have Chipotle for the first time in months, and I figured that's a win that makes everything else better. Also I poked a turtle.

-M