We take Spelling Bees very S-E-R-I-O-U-S-L-Y around here

This is what my son, Porthos, wrote to himself on the backside of his spelling list packet. I think he was trying to psyche himself up for the big classroom event. We like to spell words, any words, and sometimes we even do it for F-U-N! However, most the time, its serious business.
So, when they asked me to be the judge for his classroom spelling bee, I hesitated for about one second. In that one second, I had a flashback to his brother Aramis' class spelling bee two years ago. The boy studied for hours and hours and hours and knew how to spell EVERY single word on that list perfectly. Aramis has a kind of photogenic memory for words, so please believe me that I am not exaggerating. He had won first place in all of the spelling bees. It was a shoe-in win. The pride comes before the fall. He was the first out because he didn't ask to use "there" vs. "their" in a sentence. He started bawling and then the judge started bawling...that was me. It was not a good scene.
However, this year I knew I had the emotional fortitude to withstand any spelling trainwrecks and I agreed to be the judge for fourth grade. It went very well...at first. Porthos' teacher had given me a notebook to follow along as she went down the Scripp's spelling bee classroom list. I got to say the words, "That's correct." or "I'm sorry, that's incorrect." (I added the "I'm sorry" part myself, just because I'm a nice judge). I watched them go out one by one. One girl froze and stood there for a good five minutes like a scared deer before the teacher just asked her to sit down. One boy spelled "exact" like this: I-G-Z-A-K-T ...which I thought should be given points for creativity, but I had to say the words, "I'm sorry, that's incorrect." 

All the sudden, one of the children asked for a sentence and the teacher said, "The comedian's mad cow routine was not well received at the beef industry convention." WHAT???? She broke up laughing and winked over at me. She whispered, "Look at the example sentences with smiley faces next to them."
Word after word and page after page of funny faces! Scribbs had made a mockery of the sacred spelling words. Here they are for your perusal.




Here are some more, taken dircectly from Scripps:

"The editor was delighted that Hamilton had taken the advice to use an omnicient narrator but worried that it was too distracting that on every other page the narrator boasted about how awesome it was to know everything."

"The good news," Sam thought to himself, "is I stopped taking my anticoagulant last month. The bad news is that's a shark, alright."

"The passengers recounted the harrowing days of the cruise ship's subjection to quarantine, when they were forced to watch a hairy chest contest while listening to a calypso band under the tropical sun."

"Never a fan of the democratic process, Leo petitioned the school to appoint him student body monarch rather than have him go through the tedious process of running for president."

"The idea of courage made Arthur laugh becaues really, could any man be courageous without first wrestling a badger as he had with his bare hands?"

"Mrs. Barnes said the students were to examine the frog's heart, not take it out and play hot potato with it in the back row."

"Two marble lions guard the entrance to the New York Public Library, a situation that will surely change once it's discovered that book thieves are unafraid of lion statues."

"Without a rigorous workout regime, George was unsure he could defend his thumb-wrestling title in the fall."

"The hookworms living in the pasture were always excited when the humans walked barefoot."

"While Gavin's hotel room sadly did not have the flat panel television promised on the Web site, it did surprisingly offer the sounds of mice skittering around in the ceiling."

"Gerald felt that not being able to take a nap at school after his kindergarten year was one of life's great injustices."

"Simon preferred to think the red F atop his term paper stood for "fabulous."'

"The best guidance Mario ever got was from his free-spirited uncle who lived in a hatchback Tercel parked behiind Wal-mart."

and then it happened...it was a flashback to two years ago...I didn't have the emotional foritude or balance that a judge should bring to the esteemed position.

Instead of saying, "I'm sorry, that's incorrect," I just laughed outloud.

P.S.  Porthos won and will be going on to the Sr. School Spelling Bee...I will hide in the back and try not to giggle or cry.