As I reported last week, I started a Scrabble competition on Facebook with my sister in New York. For legal reasons, this word game is called Lexulous, but it’s too hard to say Lexulous, so if the Scrabble people want to sue, let them come and get me. I’ll have a few choice words for them, none of which are acceptable – and not because they’re proper nouns.

So here I was, cranking out seven-letter words one after another, when I realized my inbox was filling up. On Facebook, people from your past find you and I guess the acknowledgment that I had made the word OBTUND (to deaden) was getting some hefty attention on the Web. I glanced at the names of the people who had contacted me and recognized three friends from high school. Again, it was their names I recognized. The photos looked like just a bunch of really old people.

First there was Bernie’s message, which included the following observation:

“Dick, You know how you used to bounce your leg in class and how it drove the teachers crazy? Well, I picked up that habit from sitting next to you for three years. I still do it. Thanks a lot. By the way, do you still lose stuff all the time?”

Then there was a note from Ethan:

“Dick, Remember in high school when you reported your car stolen from the student parking lot but later realized your mother had driven you to school that day? Are you still a space cadet?”

Finally, from Charlene:

“You were always so adorable. I must have been crazy to have dumped you after the prom. Do you still whistle? Like how annoying was that on a date? I’m assuming you also stopped shaking your leg. Are you still scatterbrained?”

Do I still do all those things? I know I hadn’t stayed on top of my geometry, European history and chemistry, but had I also neglected my habits? I knew my wife would be objective.

“Yes, you whistle,” said Mary Ellen. “You’ve done it our entire marriage. You do it when we’re in the car and when you’re in your office downstairs. You even whistle in the morning. Do you know how abnormal that is?”

“Why?”

“Why? Because 99 percent of all the men in the world hate their jobs. Name one other person who whistles on the way to work.”

“I can name a few: Dopey, Grumpy, Sleepy ... OK, how about that leg thing? Does it annoy you?”

“You bounce your leg when you watch TV, when you eat meals and when you read the paper. Sometimes I just want to go into the garage, get some duct tape, wrap 1,000 feet of it over your right leg and secure it to the chair.”

“OK, but my question was: Does it annoy you? And do you think I’m spacey?”

“Let’s see, in the last month, you found your cell phone in the freezer, you found your car keys in the dog food bowl and just last night you found your appointment book in the broom closet.”

“Remember, Mary Ellen, there was a time I couldn’t find anything.”

I was very depressed, but I think Charlene’s note hurt the most. I e-mailed and told her that after all these years I still had wonderful remembrances of prom night. I also told her I had matured and was no longer spacey. I received this response the next day.

“Dear Dick,

“Thanks for the email. I’m so happy you have fond memories of the prom. Are you sure you’re not spacey, anymore?

“Sincerely, Ethan.”

Dick Wolfsie is an on-air personality at WISH-TV Channel 8 and weekly contributor to the Kokomo Tribune. Contact him at Wolfsie@aol.com.