The Collegian

Issue date: 4/9/09 Section: Beyond

Media Credit: Andrew Dodson

Media Credit: Andrew Dodson

Media Credit: Andrew Dodson

When sharks smell blood, they drop everything to viciously pursue their prey. That's how the inhabitants of the Ramp, a house on Union Street, respond to the word "Bananagrams."

On Friday evenings, three of the upperclassmen girls who live there sit around their small kitchen table, relaxing and chatting about their day. After a few minutes, though, the inevitable happens: a small, banana-shaped fabric bag full of game pieces similar to Scrabble tiles materializes.

The girls migrate to a long, low table in their living room. Sitting on the edge of an old couch, squatting on the floor, or kneeling by the table, they begin to play the game, a fast-paced, addictive new version of Scrabble that inspires passionate devotion, incites intense competition and manages to take up several hours a week of the girls' time.

Within 15 minutes, the size of the group has tripled.



What's the draw?

"Jaimi [Swenson] introduced speed Scrabble as a way to spend time together and not do work," said senior Hannah Stone of her housemate, who got the game as a Christmas present.

"We like it because it can be spontaneous and each game can take approximately four minutes, maybe, so you can play as short or as long as you want," Swenson, also a senior, said. "Usually we go longer than we plan."

Resisting the game's draw has proven difficult for the girls at the Ramp, who play for about three hours every week.

"We say, 'Just one more game!' But that gets said a lot," Stone said. "We play some serious Bananagrams."

"We feel like we're not wasting our minds because it's kind of a word game," Swenson said. "We feel like it's kind of legit."

Senior Mark Perkins, a Scrabble devotee, doesn't think the game has improved his vocabulary much.

"Strangely enough, 'qi' hasn't popped up in my papers this semester yet," he said. "I think qi is a Chinese philosophy or something. 'Za' is an older term for pizza. I don't know what 'ki' is. It's ridiculous."

Perkins loves to play Scrabble with friends and sometimes plays Bananagrams at the Ramp, but also spent a lot of time earlier this semester playing an online version at www.isc.ro.

"I quit playing video games for Lent, so I haven't been playing online Scrabble much," he said. "Before Lent, I probably played between a half hour and an hour a day. It's probably good that I quit."

His hobby affected his mental state.

"I would look at a Doritos bag and figure out how many words I could make out of 'Doritos,'" he said. "I'd be bored in class and be aligning my notes, trying to rearrange the letters to make words and make an actual Scrabble board. As soon as I'd close my eyes to go to sleep, I'd be immediately thinking of Scrabble words and Scrabble letters. It's kind of disturbing because you're walking from place to place, and you'd normally be thinking of something random, but it's as if you're in this zombie state, thinking of Scrabble."

The game also affected his ability to interact with other people.

"Sometimes I will lose my way in a conversation because they'll say something that I'll think was an interesting word to put on a Scrabble board," he said. "I think it could lead to some dangerously antisocial behavior."

At the Ramp, though, Bananagrams builds community -- or at least prevents uncomfortable situations.

"Sometimes people show up at our house who we don't know, and they can play Bananagrams and have fun even if they don't know us," Stone said. "Bananagrams helps you meet awkward people."

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