Opposites do attract. There is no other explanation for how my husband and I ended up married to each other for better or worse, richer or poorer … yada, yada, yada … and stayed that way for going on 27 years.

He is a scientific and technological wizard who can't spell science or technology with any amount of accuracy. I am a bookworm who once thought that "booting" my computer meant kicking it in a soft spot.

My husband tells me that he doesn't need to know how to spell as long as he knows how to operate a computer with a spell checker…which he does. So the only reason that knowing how to spell might be considered an asset is if you were a writer…which I am. So, it all works out…unless we take out the Scrabble board.

I want you to know that I was not the one who suggested playing Scrabble. My husband, bless his heart, wanted to do something with me instead of watching TV one night. So he suggested Scrabble. He must've known that he didn't stand a chance of winning. Maybe he was trying to make up for going into a laughing fit when I asked if my anti-virus software would balance my checkbook.

Whatever the reason, he brought out the game with its little wooden tiles; tiles that, incidentally, we've never counted. If we did, and found out that one was missing, then the game wouldn't be playable any longer. Blissful ignorance has always been the best policy with regard to game pieces at our house.

I let him start because, well, I knew I stood a pretty good chance at winning. The least I could do was let him take the first double letter square. And as you must know, I always do the least I can do.

He put down HOP; probably because he knew he could spell it. He said it was because the only other word he had was banned in 38 countries.

Throughout the game, he'd put down non-words like EVAIL and JAT, because other than cuss words, that's all he had. He questioned nearly every word I put down, because if you only knew how to spell cuss words, it was the strategic thing to do.

At some point, I added ING to his HOP. Then he decided that was a good idea. He tried adding ANAL to FATE. I objected because he was trying to use a triple word score. Then he tried adding AFT to HOLE. I raised an eyebrow as he looked at me rather sheepishly. His mind was obviously in some distant port-o-potty.

I put down MAIZE. He insisted it was spelled wrong but said he'd "take it". I know he refused to look it up because he'd lose a turn if he was wrong. I told him that it was corn. He thought it was funny that, because we'd taken the kids to a corn maze for Halloween, I thought a maze was corn. Hilarious.

He put down ROW. I added a DY and got a double word score for my efforts. He put down CHILE on a triple word, but I had to tell him not to use proper nouns.

"What's so proper about something that makes you toot?" he asked. He picked them back up after I explained that CHILE was a country, not a spicy stew. Then he looked at them a long, long time.

Finally, trying to be helpful, I asked, "Do you have any R's?"

He answered, "Go Fish! Got any I's?"

**-- You can reach Laura at lsnyder@lauraonlife.com Or visit her website www.lauraonlife.com for more columns and info about her books.