Yes, I Am A Spelling Nerd

When I was in the 6th grade, I was in the 6th grade spelling bee. Spelling was always my thing and I was determined to win. I will never forget being down to the last two kids in the bee. It was me and a boy named Moroni (wonder if he was a Mormon?). I remember hoping that I would kick his butt cause I was a girl and that obviously meant I was smarter, right? Wrong. I lost to him, so I had to live with 2nd place (or 1st place loser). We then moved on to the school spelling bee. That is where I was going to avenge my loss to Moroni. I studied my butt off to win that sucker. My teacher also had high hopes and helped me study every way he could. Unfortunately, I choked on the first word. I was sooooooooooooooo nervous looking out into the crowd of students, parents, and teachers. My word was, "husky". Of course I knew how to spell such an easy word. But as I looked out at all the faces staring at me waiting for me to spell husky, I for some odd reason muttered the letter s. What? S? I quickly tried to fix my mistake and spelled out h-u-s-k-y. But, it was too late. I will never forget the look on Mr. Morris' face. Totally stunned would be a good way to describe it. I was out and totally ticked at myself for choking under the pressure.

Fast forward to today. Dylan has inherited my knack for spelling. This year his school had a spelling bee. When he told me he wanted to join, I thought to myself that he would be the one to avenge my spelling bee blunder. He first had to qualify. They took 10 kids from 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. He made it through the 4th grade bee with a piece of cake. Now it was time for the big one. I kept asking him what day it would be, and he kept forgetting to find out. One day I called the school and asked. The secretary told me it was the next day. My heart sank. How could we cram all those words in one day? That night we did a major cramming session and he was burnt out. The next day I was pumped but for some reason quite nervous for him. His school did it differently than mine. They had to write the words, instead of get up and say them in the microphone. I thought that might alleviate some nerves. He did mighty respectable making it to the top 9 out of 30. I thought that was pretty good considering our total lack of preparation. The funny thing is that he got out on the word "arthritis". That is not a very tricky word at all. He had already done "tuberculosis" and "pneumonia". But, he mistakenly thought arthritis was pronounced "arthuritis". The reason this cracked me up is because this is a direct quote from Jesse. His favorite show is "The King of Queens". On the show, Doug refers to his father-in-law, Arthur, as Arthuritis. Jesse felt bad that he got out on that word. But now, Dylan has caught the spelling bee bug and will be back next year.