Maven

The most dangerous enemy is one who instills just a touch of doubt, leaving you alone soon after to suffer your own demise. One such villain is Iago. Another, probably, is Henry Gale. Another, Mary Poppins.

That said, please know: if anything even remotely tragic should happen to me in the near future, it wasn’t an accident. It was Maven.

Maven is my cell phone. More specifically, a program inside my cell phone. Even more specifically, she’s the de facto computer opponent in my mobile/online Scrabble game. And yes, she’s most definitely female. A female who makes me question my sense of what is real.

There are things I like about Maven. She always lets me go first, which means automatically starting with a kick-ass double word score. She’s also a flexible opponent, offering five levels of difficulty ranging from Beginner to Expert. Within six months of knowing each other, I’d already advanced to the fourth level called, appropriately enough, Advanced. And that’s when Maven started fucking with me.

At first, I was totally winning and it was fun. Until the very end, when Maven whipped out some outta nowhere double letter X action that won her the entire game by three measly points. Not sure if it was the anger or the shame, but I didn’t play for four days.

When I did come back, Maven did not hesitate to mercilessly ravage me. About five games later, I started sensing negative changes in my self-esteem. When I stopped answering calls out of resentment for my cell phone, I decided to drop back down to Intermediate.

Then the freaky shit started happening. I opened with COURT, a solid fourteen points. So Maven throws down JERK (31 pts). No, you’re the jerk, Maven, I thought. And then a little later on she did it again. This time: DEFEAT (20 pts). Then HARM (13 pts), and finally DEATH (pts. not important). Then I stopped playing.

I’ve experienced this nonsense before and I ain’t havin’ no more, thank you. But some days when I’m particularly angry and courageous, I think about taking Maven on again. But head on, with full force, Expert-style. But then I don’t. 'Cause I’m sure she’ll somehow convince me that my family and friends all secretly hate me and then when the game’s all finished and I’m feeling sad and I put my cell phone back into my jeans pocket it'll somehow ignite into flames and make my penis catch on fire and BEEN THERE DONE THAT, thank you.