Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better than Scrabble…
Over the past week at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track Nationals in Houston, I had a lot of free time to sit around in my hotel room at the Hyatt downtown. You would think I would be out enjoying the big city atmosphere, but alas, I was not. Why? Because Houston smells like urine, that’s why. Besides smelling like pee and the enormous amount of pollution (to which we can probably attribute the smell), Houston does not have much to offer. Window shopping downtown was not unlike what I could have done in my own hometown, seeing as the only store I bought merchandise was from Macy’s. The nightlife was fairly uneventful as well. There were a few cool bars, but one would expect a lot more from a city whose slogan is “bigger is better!”
It was when we were faced with the dilemma of passing time that I was introduced to the new love of my life: Bananagrams. The game is a lot like scrabble, but for those without the time, patience, and/or attention span attributed to retirees and stay-at-home moms.
Here’s the basics:
Everyone gets a set amount of tiles according to how many people are playing, leaving a pile of tiles in the middle of the group.
Starting with the tiles faced down, you wait until everyone is ready to flip them right-side up.
Once they are all right-side up, you start spelling words with your tiles and arrange them as you would on a scrabble board.
Once you have used all your tiles and arranged them into words, you say “PEEL!” and then everyone, including you, has to draw another tile from the pile. This happens everytime you use all your tiles.
If you are unable to find a way to use a tile, you can say “DUMP!” and discard the tile into the pile. However, if you discard a tile, then you must draw three new tiles.
Once all the tiles from the pile are drawn leaving none left, then it is a race to who can use all their tiles the fastest.
Whoever is the first to use all their tiles wins and says “BANANAGRAMS!”
In it’s fun quirky yellow cloth banana-shaped case, it makes a fun conversational peice and makes it easy to carry for travel. Like a deck of cards, you can pick up a game here, there, anywhere and while away 5 minutes or 5 hours. Not only is it quick and easy to learn, but since most of the words you can make are only 3 and 4 letter words, you don’t even need to be a “good speller” in order to play. Though I will say, it helps ENORMOUSLY if you know all the two letter words from scrabble. And of course, the better your vocabulary, the better your chances of winning are.
However, if you go to Walmart or Target or some other general store you won’t have any luck finding it there. As far as I know, the game is only sold in Barnes and Nobles, on websites such as Amazon, and in other specialty bookstores (such as Great Lakes Books and Supplies in Big Rapids, MI).
So go bananas!
