My pain is considerable, but if I can help but one person by sharing my story today, I can take some small comfort that someone else was spared my agony.

Brooke begged me to sign up for Facebook, but would I listen? No, I put it off. I took it for granted that I had time, that it would always be there, unchanged, waiting for me when I finally got around to signing up.

So, this week, I finally did get around to it, only to find ... sorry, give me a minute here, the wound is still fresh ... Scrabulous is gone. It's gone, people. Before I even had a chance to play it.

The tragedy doesn't end there, folks. The alternative -- the methadone to Scrabulous's heroin, if you will -- Hasbro's Beta version of Scrabble is gone, too. Maybe not forever; there remains a small hope we'll see it again someday.

To some of you heartless bastards, this may not mean anything. Maybe it's just another board game to you, just one in a big, uncaring world full of mindless pursuits. Yeah, to you, games are a dime a dozen; you play them, and toss them aside like yesterday's newspaper.

But Scrabble meant something to me and my family. It meant devious scheming to undermine opponents. It meant near-constant arguing after Thanksgiving dinner. It meant my mom, my aunt, my grandma and my sisters coming together to attack each other, using any means necessary to claim victory. It meant cheating and hiding tiles in your slipper and turning the egg timer back over when no one else was paying attention.

Yes, this and more is what Scrabble means to me.

And now it's gone. There's just never enough time, is there?