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He’s stalling, I think.

He knows I have him on the ropes, and he’s just postponing the inevitable.

Or maybe he’s toying with me. Just waiting to deliver the killing blow.

My husband and I are waging a war of words.

I don’t mean that we’re arguing, though we do that, too, from time to time.

No, we are locked in an ongoing series of Words With Friends games, the online equivalent of Scrabble. At this writing, I am leading four games to three.

This is a very big deal.

The only person who has beaten me more times at Scrabble than Herb is my mother. Never play Scrabble with someone who does crossword puzzles. My mom knows every bizarre two- and three-letter word on the planet from her years of crossword puzzle training.

Herb is more of a strategic player. He can see all the opportunities for layering words onto existing words to get more bang for your letters. He is also the master of the coveted seven-letter word, which brings a giant bonus.

When we play Scrabble on a traditional board, he is much more likely than me to win. This is no small thing between a writer/editor and a former copy editor.

Marriages have ended over less than this.

When he is getting ready to deliver the killing blow, he usually looks at me sheepishly but with a satisfied smile lurking just behind.

In these moments, I want to hit him over the head with the Scrabble board.

My level of frustration with being routinely bested was such that I required long breaks between periods of Scrabble play, though I love the game.

Curiously, I seem to be much more competitive at the online version. I think I know why. I am not much of a gambler and will usually go for the lower-point word that I’m sure of instead of taking the chance on a higher-point word that might not be a word after all.

My finest moment in traditional Scrabble was when I tried “qi” on a lark because I had nothing to lose. And it turned out that it really was a word.

In the traditional version of the game, if your opponent looks up the word, and it is not a word, you lose your turn. I hate that.

In the online version, you can try lots of things. The game will kick it back if it’s not a word, and you get to try something else. I like this.

Freed from my conservative nature, I have tried and succeeded with things I would never have imagined could be words.

But my greatest satisfaction was a word that I knew was a word. It was a wonderful word that put “x” on a triple letter block and the word on double word score for a total of 59 points.

It was “xenon.” It’s a gas — and, in the context of this particular game, it was (like “Jumping Jack Flash”) a gas, gas, gas!

Now, we are each down to a letter or two. Thanks to “tipi,” I am up by 3. And so, I wait, wondering if he is stalling or just toying with me.

And I tell myself: I’ll always have xenon.

Susan Ladd is now leading her husband six games to four. Contact her at 373-7006 or susan.ladd@news-record.com.