Word Factory

Yesterday was one of those decidedly OC days. I wanted to deposit some more stuff in the bodega, but first some clearing out was in order. It was, after all, groaning from an assortment of bags and boxes, furniture and forgotten photographs.

As I sorted and piled, I found a box that held stuff from the '80s and '90s. There were yellowing copies of Tiger Beat and Seventeen and Spandau Ballet posters. There were bookmarks, scrapbooks and letters from high school and college. And there, buried along with Menudo memorabilia and jigsaw puzzles, was the forgotten Word Factory.

Looking at the obviously time-worn tiles, I thought of countless bonding moments spent and made amid the racket made by the shaking of the grid. My sisters and I spent lazy summer afternoons stringing together words. In college, "vacant" periods were spent in the V office, playing Word Factory when we should be cramming for an exam or beating deadlines. Why, we even turned the thing into a full-blown competition that stretched far beyond summer writing workshops in Balayan and in Baguio! I also thought of the bouts with insomnia made more tolerable by forming words and lining the inside of the grid with a towelette to muffle the crack of the tiles.

Now, there are online games, rendering the Word Factory almost obsolete. As I hedged between keeping the game and donating it to the neighborhood daycare (along with toys outgrown and forgotten), my niece got hold of the grid and decided that it's the perfect "cake."

Looks like the Word Factory will be here a little while longer. :p