LISA DENTON: You know, Barry, if we were many, many years younger (sigh), we could take part in something fun at the Chattanooga Public Library this weekend.

The downtown branch on Broad Street is hosting a Board Game Bonanza from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday. They'll be playing a bunch of the classics, like Risk, Monopoly, Life, Clue and Scrabble - the original wireless games.

I especially love Scrabble. I even buy the Scrabble Cheez-Its. I would eat them with alphabet soup, but that just seems like overkill.

Unfortunately for us, the Bonanza is for youths 10-18, and we haven't been able to pass for that age in about, oh, three decades now.

BARRY COURTER: Speak for yourself. I wasn't always blond you know. Actually, I started going blond at about 16. Called it a birthmark - in my hair - then. As for you and your Cheez-Its, I bet you won't eat a handful of them if the word comes out misspelled. Your brain won't let you do it, will it?

LISA: Well, I play (eat) the words I'm dealt, then go back for more letters. I figure I'm gaining an extra 10 pounds every snacktime, so I might want to rethink my game strategy.

BARRY: But you are getting smarter too.

The wireless games idea is a good one. I imagine a lot of kids there wondering if the batteries are dead because the games don't beep, light up or have a soundtrack.

LISA: Well, it's all in how you play. At Casa Lisa, we've had some spirited games of Balderdash, Scattergories and Sequence, and I'm pretty sure there's a video of me playing Guesstures on a Facebook page somewhere. Some people are so jealous of my miming talent that they hold it up for ridicule.

BARRY: We've had some brutal games of Pictionary at our family gatherings. Newbies are warned to wear their thick skin because there will be name-calling and poor, funny or accidentally obscene drawings will be made fun of in the harshest of ways.

It's a lot of fun, as long as my team wins.