As a kid, I was pretty good at stuff. I could hit a baseball really far, blast a kickball out of the park, and do some other things that did not require my presence on a home plate. For example, I was also very good at dodge ball.

My excellence as a child really revolved around my ability to memorize information and return it with great accuracy. Thankfully, this evolved into an ability to paraphrase, and even think critically as time wore on. Nevertheless, my rote memorization skills stuck by, and saw to it that I would be an insufferable know-it-all throughout my childhood and adolescence (perhaps throughout my adulthood, as well, but that has yet to be seen).

Within mere years of my birth, I had discovered the most insufferable subject possible in which to be a know-it-all: spelling.

As a person who has studied the English language in even a cursory way, I can confirm that words are not spelled right. That is, there are a vast number of unlikely rules and ye Olde English carry-overs that take words miles away from their expected, phonetic spellings. This, much to their dismay, did not help my classmates in their pursuit of spelling excellence. It did, however, play directly into my hand, which I was busy committing to my photographic memory.

Our third and fourth grade teacher was bent on teaching us words that—had we stayed in Rocky Mount, NC—none of us would have ever had need to know. These were grand words, like “incognito” and “abhor” and “loquacious.” It was an exciting time to be alive, to say the least. Thus began my love affair with the English language.

I devoured her vocabulary lists. I strove to be as creative as possible in my example sentences. I even used my dad’s suggestion of “Nature abhors a vacuum,” assuming that the vacuum was of the Hoover persuasion. (I would hold onto this assumption for years.) I showed off each week by using the entire list in a single, grotesquely claused sentence. I was out of control.

While memorizing definitions and writing example sentences was wonderful, the spelling game was nothing short of magnificent. Mrs. Westcott had an enormous jar of bingo chips. I can still remember how they felt—the rough, unsafe edges where they had been popped from their sheets. The candy apple red that I could see right through. The perfect, right-between-a-penny-and-a-dime size. The feel of twenty of them all at once, filling my sweaty little hands like gold stolen off a dead pirate in the midst of battle. Oh, the spoils. The glorious spoils.

Each correctly spelled word was worth one bingo chip, and it was my mission in life to collect as many bingo chips as possible. Before you start judging me, let me tell you that these bingo chips were real currency. There were PRIZES. Much like tickets at Chuck-E-Cheese, these bingo chips could be traded at the end of the game for trinkets. My lizard brain has chosen to remember only the glorious feeling of gaining chips to be traded for prizes, rather than the crappy prizes themselves, but I assure you, they were very appealing at the time.

Oh, how I longed to look in that prize drawer each week, having counted up my little red doubloons and compared my haul with my fellow nerds’ (also insufferable know-it-alls). We had stood and recited enough words correctly to earn a plastic maze game, or maybe even a deck of cards. We were gods among men, and as the other, more normal children went about the business of retrieving the single pack of Smarties they had earned, we quietly reveled in what was surely the greatest achievement of our lives. I was sure the joy would never end.

The joy ended abruptly when my family moved to Nashville and I was shoved into a world in which I did not belong. There were a good number of nerds with whom I could have become friends, but for some reason, even this most likely situation did not pan out. Happily, spelling was willing to be my friend. I do not remember much from that year, but I do remember the spelling bee.

I had a terrible haircut and I was wearing my jumper. I don’t quite recall how I qualified to be in the spelling bee, but I definitely deserved to be there, “loquacious” and all. I did pretty well, but didn’t win. I shed some tears over it, but they were probably also related to my deep depression that had developed as a result of my lack of friends. Either way, there’s a picture of me crying after losing the spelling bee, and the tears are definitely at least partially spelling-related. In sum, spelling was becoming less rewarding, which boded well for my development into a normal teenager.

We moved again, and things were much better. I made great, and fast, friends in Georgia, where the nerdery was exactly my speed. The fact that my class only had four people in it also increased my chances of acceptance, as no one had a choice. I even became cool, foraying into the eighth grade social circle as a seventh grader. Pretty hot stuff.

I was hilarious, and daring, and smart, and spelling was not part of my identity in the way it once had been. I even spelled a couple words wrong just to see how it felt. I quickly went back to spelling correctly, as the queasiness I felt was unpleasant. Spelling was still my good friend, but one with whom I kept in touch by mail.

After two years in Georgia, we moved again, this time to Kansas, where I would also find fast friends, but a great dearth of nerdery. There was not, however, a dearth of enthusiasm for football.

Due to conflicting pick-up times and work schedules, my mom “suggested” that my younger brother and I try out for the spelling bee team, whose practices would allow her to pick us up later without also leaving us to play, unsupervised, in the roads/ditches/sewers by the school—as we would have preferred to do. We both made the teams for our respective age groups, and were locked in for five weeks of fun-filled, after school practice.

My newfound lack of enthusiasm/clear indifference toward ultimate spelling domination stuck in the craw of my classmate who scored only well enough to earn a spot as an alternate. Had I not participated at all, she could have been a contender. In retrospect, it was very kind of me—if somewhat uncharacteristic—to refrain from pointing out that she could also have been a contender if she had been better at spelling than me. But I digress. The point is, she was pissed.

I dazzled my teammates and was evenly matched with my good friend, Emily. The two of us would routinely close out the practices with spelling stalemates (the only type of stalemate that could be more boring than those found in a chess club). She was motivated, studying the book, even convincing me to do so. Finally, it was bee time.

While I had not managed to cultivate an interest in winning, I had managed to cultivate an interest in missing school for the day. I showed up, much to the chagrin of our alternate, whose desire to compete had grown exponentially over the last weeks. She was fairly seething with spelling envy.

We arrived at the auditorium and took our seats on the stage. I had never had such an enormous nametag on my chest, and felt a little important, which made me feel a little nervous. I quickly regained my composure when I remembered that I had no interest in winning. I did hope that Emily would win, and gave her the thumbs up from across the aisle.

The first few rounds went by without incident. Slowly, people began being eliminated, and things picked up speed. Despite the increase in pace, I started to get bored. Had bingo chips been in play, it may have been a different story, but the only reward for spelling the words correctly was the privilege of returning to a cold, hard folding chair. The people in the audience were sitting in plush theater seats. Maybe they were trying to motivate us to lose.

At around the halfway point, I was given the word “affiliate,” which I had learned to spell five years earlier. I began. A-F-F-I-L-A-

BUZZ

I realized immediately that my quickness caused me to forget the second “I.” I took the amplified “Incorrect!” in stride, left the stage, and made my way into the audience, where the other losers (in the technical sense) from my team were sitting. As I passed the alternates’ section, ours gave me the most hateful, pleading look I have ever seen. It said, “You fucking bitch, I could have been a contender.” I gave her a smile, and continued to my teammates, who were already resting peacefully in their plush theater seats, their dirty shoes on the seatbacks in front of them, and our spineless coach doing nothing to stop them. I could see what I wanted. They were living my dream.

Emily won, and went on to compete at the state or national level as well. I can’t remember. I’m not sure what happened to that alternate. Maybe she got to compete in a spelling bee in high school, or even college. If she hasn’t yet, I hope she’s still reaching for that dream.

As for me, my spelling career is over. The entrance of Microsoft Word into my life made it largely irrelevant, and I am slowly forgetting how to spell those wily, Olde English exceptions. My love affair with the language is alive and well, but—like many old relationships—it is comfortable and mature. We stay in together on Saturday nights and reminisce, making terrible puns and cursing, rather than studying every detail and seeking perfection. That young love had its place, but there’s nothing like the freedom that comes from not giving a shit.

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