Today, my family had its final Christmas celebration of the year. I'm taking a break to write about the rousing game of Balderdash we just completed.

I finished third.

If you don't know the interactive boardgame Balderdash, the basic premise is this: Make up the biggest line of nonsense, and if the most people vote for your answers, and you win. 

My best answer of the day came in the initials category. In this phase of the game, players are asked to guess for what a certain acronym stands. I said AGRC stands for American Gorilla Rescue Society, and I drew three votes from my eight competitors. The answer was incorrect -- I never remember the real answers -- but I got points for the votes I received.

With three players vying for the win, the category came up as initials again, and I said WWMS meant Well-built Widgets Manufacturers Society.

Unfortunately, my answer was misread as Well-built Wideset Manufacturers Society. Too nonsensical (if that's a word) to garner any votes. The game was lost.

I learned a hard lesson.

Penmanship is a virtue. Write your G's slowly so that they don't look like S's. It could lose you the game.