be the bee, the sequel

an exaltation of dorks

I write to you with the utterly solemn news that I placed eighth in the National Spelling Bee yesterday. Last year, I placed 7th. This time, I batted away fairly straightforward words such as interfluvial, impious, and spent far too long overthinking the correct spelling of the fencing term “parry” (asking the word’s country of origin and being told it was French sent me into a tailspin of worry that it was actually spelled “parré” but LUCKILY I’ve read this Peabody and Sherman book about the French Revolution in which Peabody or Sherman fences Robespierre to my kids about seven hundred times and the proper spelling floated in front of my memory eyes).

There were the usual hijinx (other acceptable spelling: high jinks): the sweet octogenarian dragging his oxygen tank up to the front of the stage, speeding through his word and adding superfluous E’s while the entire dais groaned with his misspelling of a word we all knew he knew. The New Jersey announcer battling her native accent while the contestants stood sometimes dumbfounded at her pronunciations. A man in a cropped (only because he was so tall) Nirvana tee shouting “JANK??!” several times into the microphone as the announcer yelled “JANK” back at him, and when he finally changed it to JINK (to move quickly or unexpectedly with sudden turns and shifts) and she said yes, finally, you said it right, and he said BUT I SAID THAT AND YOU SAID NO, and she laughed and the folds of her spelling-themed shirt shook with her laughter.

But then, but then.

In the 12th or 13th round, I knew I was a goner when I was given the word dreadnought. I’d never HEARD of the damn thing.

Definition?

An outer garment of heavy woolen cloth, or battleship, one that is among the largest or most powerful of its kind.

I foolishly deduced that because it was a nautical term, the “nought” part would be spelled “naut,” but I knew it was wrong even as I spelled it out. Was it “knot,” as in measuring depth of water in nautical terminology? Or “naught,” as in, my knowledge of this word?

Miss Teen Southern California whispered “I love your pants though,” to me as I skulked off the stage. Thanks, they’re Big Buds!

The depressing irony of it all is that my husband spent the weekend in Las Vegas at a board game convention, the very notion of which I of course spiritually disparage, but when he found out I lost on dreadnought he winced. “There’s a dreadnought in almost every board game. They’re huge ships. If you played, you would have known that one!”

Well, fine. I’m glad I didn’t know that one, then.

My friend Daniel competed in the bee with me (he went out on barraca). Just two dorks racing to Long Beach on Oscars Sunday for the love of WORDS.