Well, I turned all of 29 recently, and though 29 isn't a particularly notable birthday compared to 16 or 18 or 40, it got me to thinking about the old days.

What came to mind, actually, was the first time I realized that I wasn't going to be a kid for the rest of my life. You see, until I played a certain game of Scrabble with my grandmother, I thought I understood the world.

My world at least. It was a simple place. I slept late. I ate oatmeal. I played in the yard. The bigger people -- or adults as they wanted to be known -- rewarded me when I did good and punished me when I did bad. My world didn't have a lot of depth, just a lot of length and width, but I liked that.

Then, one rainy afternoon in Grammie's dining room, everything changed. I must've been about nine; all reedy and short. Grammie, in her blue cardigan, and I were sitting in her little dining room. The one at the top of the stairs with the painting of irises on one wall and the garden out the back.

It was late afternoon and we were deep into a game of two-handed Scrabble. Our tea had gone cold, and the letter bag had lost its heft. I was sitting on a 20-point cushion.

It was her turn. For awhile, she'd fingered the top button of her cardigan, deep in thought. She had a chance to hit a triple word score, and she wanted to make it count. Finally, my ever-discreet Grammie chose four tiles and set them down.

The word started out nicely enough-an F on the red square. Then, a U. Okay, I'm thinking Fury or Fuse. Then, a C.

Uh-oh.

And finally, horribly, irrevocably, a K.

Forty-six points.

She leaned back. Her palms were dry. "Fuck," she deadpanned, and then softly, "Your move, honey."

But, I fluttered, this was not my Grammie, the one who treasured that vaguely pig-shaped cutting board I made her for Christmas, the one who always let me win. Clearly we had entered a new phase in our relationship.

So I had to challenge her. "Fuck" was not a word approved by the Scrabble gods looking down from Alphabet Mountain. This was ... slang! Of course, I couldn't actually say the word to challenge it because I wasn't old enough.

A dilemma, you'll agree. But I made a feeble attempt, averting my eyes and waving my left hand at the board. "This, it is not a word."

Grammie clicked her tongue. Again, deadpan. Not a smile, not a twitch of an eyelash. "Prove it," she said.

On the advice of counsel (my mom, who was hovering nearby), we turned to the dictionary, and there it was in bold type, derived from Fokken (to breed cattle) and lodged between Fuchsin (a bluish-red dye) and fucoid, of or relating to rock weeds.

"But wait," I said, appealing to a higher court (also my mom). "She can't do that?"

"Well," mom said, "If it's in the dictionary, it looks alright to me."

So I turned to my brother. "Look at this!" I said, after luring him to the board. "It's not fair!"

I appealed to his sense of fair play, to that mysterious and powerful bond between siblings. Unfortunately I forgot one small thing: one cannot pound one's blood brother in the morning and then expect a favorable judgment in the afternoon. He sided with the enemy.

I was out of appeals, and my composure fled. I sat back and stared at the ceiling as Grammie gleefully added up her points. Now she was ahead by 26 points. A huge gap!

"Had enough?" she asked, shaking the letter bag.

I nodded, stood and walked out of the room. My Grammie, the dictionary, my mom, my brother, the game itself, all had betrayed me. My safe little world had vanished. There was nothing left to do but grow up.