When our cruel oppressor/ publisher/hallowed leader asked Cassie and I to participate in the Main Street Concord spelling bee, two things immediately sprang to mind.
1.) If I say “no,” she might cut the Insider hamster adoption fund. Or forget to give me a paycheck.
2.) I'm a pretty good speller – how bad could this be?
So, I agreed, forcing Cassie to do the same. Our ad representative, Sherri Cote, was later coerced into joining us and “Team Spell Check” was born.
I had mixed feelings going in to the spelling bee. I've always been a voracious reader, and I reasoned that my spelling abilities should be pretty good. I participated in a school-wide spelling bee in second grade, having won the right to represent Mrs. Heche's class by beating out the rest of my classmates. I went on to take third place overall, and I still have the purple ribbon to prove it.
The word that kept me from taking home the first place ribbon was “colonel.” Little did I know that a word with similarly ridiculous spelling would be my downfall this time around as well.
The day of the spelling bee got off to a less than stellar start. Sherri wasn't feeling well and by 3 p.m. announced that she wouldn't be able to make it. Thankfully, Monitor editor and Insider cartoonist Clay McCuistion agreed to join us, for which I am eternally grateful. (You rock, Clay.)
Cassie and I grabbed a bite to eat around 5, then headed over to the Capitol Center for the Arts. By some miracle, we found a parking spot relatively close by. Heading into the building, we were accosted by two kids dressed as bumble bees, who were using high-pressure selling techniques to encourage passersby to come to the spelling bee. One kid eyed us suspiciously as we turned the corner onto the Capitol Center walkway.
“Are you spellers?” he asked, accusingly.
“Yes.” I said nervously, scanning for the nearest escape route.
“Good,” he said, giving us a shifty look before moving on to the next hapless victim.
Having escaped the gang of killer bees, we made our way inside, checked in and scoped out the room. The event was being held in the main lobby, which was adorned with columns of black and yellow balloons topped with friendly-looking helium bees. Chairs were set up, and a pack of people mingled by the food table. Volunteers dressed in bee colors sold raffle tickets and directed spellers and audience members. We took a moment to peruse the event program where there was a listing of the team members. Right away, I noticed that City Manager Tom Aspell was representing the mayor's team, and suddenly I knew everything was going to be all right. A sense of calm washed over me as I pondered our cardigan-wearing city leader.
That was all-too-quickly replaced with a sense of impending doom as Cassie and I made our way to the green room for a speller debriefing. All of the team members crowded into the small space to hear the rules – we would have one minute to deliberate before we had to spell the word, and we could use the pen and paper provided – then we shuffled back to the main room for the start of the spelling bee.
Kevin Flynn, author and former WMUR reporter, was the host for the evening. As he called the first team to the stage, knots formed in my stomach. Kevin announced the first word: Sugary. Cassie and I exchanged quizzical looks. Really? A strange choice for the first word. The team spelled it, and waited as the judges exchanged equally quizzical looks. Finally, Kevin announced that he gave the wrong word – he meant to say “surgery.” It was an interesting way to start out the evening. It was like he was saying, “I can make mistakes and we all laugh about it, but if you make a mistake, you're out. And you look unintelligent.”
We were the fifth team to go. Kevin announced our name, and unlike the team before us, Concord Chorale's Singing Spellers, we got on the stage to a smattering of applause. I think three people clapped. Officially offended, and unsure what the Concord Chorale had that we didn't, I awaited the word.
Kevin read “vacuum.” I totally knew it. As the team speaker for that round, I spelled it and the judges pronounced it correct. Elated, I mentally stuck my tongue out at the audience and sat back down.
Round one passed without incident – every team made it through. Then came round two, when the mayor's team got a bad break. Asked to spell, “denouement,” they deliberated for a moment and spelled, “T-I-M-E-T-O-D-R-I-N-K.” It was a graceful way to go out, though I felt like that was a tough word for round two, particularly as I had never heard of it, and had to ask my book-smart husband what the word was three times as I was writing this article. However, my resentment for this would pale in comparison to the word my team was presented: prerogative.
Allow me to start by saying that this is one of the craziest words in the English language, and I officially refuse to use it in my writing or speech, except when I'm denouncing it. We all agreed that the spelling was “perogative,” but as Clay spelled the word, the audience, who for this evening had declared themselves the official foreshadowers by either moaning of clapping before the judges pronounced something right or wrong, let out a collective groan. Were they groaning out of pity? Or was it because they thought I was a bad person? The jury is still out on that one, but as soon I heard it, I knew we were sunk.
Come on. “Pr?” We weren't spelling “progressive” or “preference,” for which the “pr” spelling makes sense. Our word was pronounced “PERogative.” Truly, Hell hath no fury like a speller scorned.
For the next hour, I heard other teams spell words like “tandem,” “technique” and “penicillin.” I shook my fist in frustration – I knew how to spell those words. But as it was in third grade, so it was today, 18 years later – a victim of nonsensical phonology.
I voiced my sentiments to Cassie. “I'm still mad about the fat on my chicken,” she said, referring to a sandwich she had for dinner. Clearly I was the only one bearing the burden of our crushing defeat.
At 8:15, Cassie and I headed out, stopping to pick up our favor, a gift from Main Street Concord for participating. By the time I ate my chocolate bumble bee and gnawed on the honey stick, I felt a little better. That could have been the sugar doing it's thing, but I was able to put things into perspective. Sure, I got dissed by the audience and looked incompetent, but I did it for a good cause, and that counts of something.
Main Street Concord, spend my pride wisely.
