Be the Bee

A woman (me) competes in, and doesn't win, the National Spelling Bee.

Any Person of a Certain Age who emotionally perseverated over the Anne of Green Gables VHS collection knows that the spell-off between Anne and Gilbert of the word "chrysanthemum" was the horny apogee of the 4-VHS box set. That scene lit a fire of recognition in me that could not be assuaged. Her studiousness paying off, her tightly clenched fists, her absolutism in her ability - what could be more admirable, more titillating? Well, Gilbert spelling it wrong, actually. But I digress.

My schools never took part in spelling bees, so it was like growing up with a birthday on Christmas - I never knew any different. But as I grew older, and came to understand that kids routinely gathered from around the country to spell against one another?? I had devastatingly missed my window…or so I thought.

My son's school's Facebook page mentioned how well the 5th graders had performed in the county spelling bee and I eagerly leapt to press the "like" button. I zoomed in on the photo, saw the Assistant Principal was wearing a tie covered in illustrated bees. "Huh…" I muttered to myself, before opening a tab and googling

Adult Spelling Bee are there any?

Reader, there is one. More than “one” - it’s the National Adult Spelling Bee, and it's held about 37 minutes from my front door, every March.

In a giddy furor, I paid the $10 fee and sat back, visualizing myself in six weeks’ time, under spotlights, slowly and steadily spelling an impossible word, but not before ascertaining it was of Greek origin, steadily deriving the correct suffix’s foreign order of vowels. No bell would ding, rather the thunderous applause of an audience of fellow dorks and the dorks' families, wowed that such a word could be known so intimately, so assuredly. And by a woman so young!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There would be no Gilbert to impress this time, but I would probably be wearing something 19th century inspired. Am I writing about what I would WEAR to a SPELLING BEE?? Hell yeah, I am. (For those curious, The Speller in question wore a 19th century inspired sweater by Doen and denim by Rudy Jude.)

The morning of the Bee, I took my kids to the Long Beach Aquarium. "I’ll be looking at the moonfish, but IIIII'll beeeeeee seeeeeeing Latin prefixes..." Hours later, after losing Zoe twice in the crowded jellyfish section, I nervously dragged my kids up the church steps and asked if they had the number 23 available when I checked in. The Michael Jordan of spelling, was the idea. Flying through the air, dunking my intellect in a pile of letters.

I sat in the pews, admonishing my kids for being too cavalier with the various Bibles sleeping in their wooden cages, while friendly speller after speller approached me. "Is this your first time at the Bee??" one regular asked me, already knowing the answer. "This is my 10th consecutive bee." "She won three years ago!" her husband encouraged.

"I assume you're here because you love words and books as much as I do," said a friendly fellow with his hand outstretched.

I am, and I do, I really do. We shook hands, and I looked around. Most of the spellers were in their 50s and 60s, but there were a few women in their 70s positively exuding logographic badassery. One of them had flown all the way from Houston to compete at the Bee - she won last year.

Around 30 of us arranged ourselves on the church stage (dais? pulpit? idk lol) and went up, one by one, round by round, the words becoming increasingly challenging. Some of my words were: lugubrious, myopic, ignominious. Most of the words the other spellers were handed I knew. Some, I would have gotten exactly as wrong as they did, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I had not been given that word. The luck of the draw…!

Eventually, in the 10th round, I was given salvarsan. An anti-syphilitic and the first effective antibiotic, introduced in 1910. The first real treatment for syphilis and it gave me a burning sensation of defeat. Rude! I mumbled that I’d rather have syphilis than lose to this word, and the woman with the microphone laughed and told me she hoped I’d be back the following year. I sat down in the pews to watch the rest of the Bee go down, and a guy leaned forward and whispered “I’m sorry you lost, you were fun to watch.” Small consolation for a…well, I wouldn’t necessarily say devastating defeat, as it was probably the most fun I’ve had losing in a long time!

In the end, these three women won (the middle won first place). After we congratulated them, many of them invited me out to dinner. “We always go out together afterward to celebrate!” they exclaimed, but I had my kids with me, and being alone at a restaurant with them while trying to make Spelling Friends (TM) sounded less than ideal.

“NEXT YEAR!” I promised. I can’t wait.

W-A-I-T. Wait.