12

I was reading the How Not To Guy's blog about his misspellings and other such gramatical errors in his blog. I personally think when the story is good, you forgive (or don't see at all) the errors altogether, and his blogs are pretty damn funny and true.

But the whole spelling subject brought back a memory I seldom recollect intentionally. It was the Spring of 1984...when I was a fifith grader. Every year, the school held a spelling bee contest within each grade. This particular year and grade of my scholastic career, I'd decided to enter the contest. Don't know what made me take the leap of faith.

The 1st round started out with almost everyone in the class. I guess as you get older, you become more confident in your abilities. Anyway, it started out with about 16 kids. One by one, we were all given easy words to spell in the first round. As the rounds got higher, so did the level of difficulty with a peppering of an out of place easy word every now and then. By the time we'd reached round 2, it was myself and two other kids at the go. I began to get nervous. Considering I had volunteered into the contest on a whim (this is where it all started, my inclination to do things on a whim through out my life), I was more than happy that I'd gone this far. But now I was beginning to think that I was actually smarter than I'd thought! I'd even beat out Kristin and Andy, the two smartest kids in the class!

Oh! Wouldn't my mother be happy when she learned I'd been the spelling champion of the class! Then maybe she'd cut me some slack when it came to piano practice and let me watch TV instead (I'd started piano because it was fun and I enjoyed it, but as with all things that perk a child's interest with the most purest of intents and desires, my mother ruined it for me by making it her life's goal to create a phenom).

I let myself become excited. My palms were sweaty, my breathing irratic, and my face began to feel hot. My toes curled inside my shoes in anticipation of my next word. What would it be?

"Your word, Miss Park, is twelve..."

Oh super! Oh luck! Oh fortune had smiled upon me this day! I'd lucked out and gotten one of the out of place easy words for this round! God wanted me to be a speller. Fantastic.

"Twelve." I repeated, sweaty hands clasped behind me. "T - W - E- L..." then it happened. I blanked out. I'd forgotten where I was in the word. Was I in the middle? The end? Had I already said E? Did I say W yet? My nerves got the better of me at that moment. I was no longer sure what was coming out of my mouth. How embarassing! Everyone was staring at me and waiting...I could hear them snickering at me for hesitating, for taking so long to spell such a simple word! I wanted to get out of the room. I wanted to disappear for a day from everyone. My brain raced, thinking about how kids would treat me after this, after whatever was going to happen to me, I thought about how embarassing it would be to lose in this round to a word I KNEW how to spell but I couldn't get my thoughts straight, I couldn't get the right letters out of my mouth. I froze. The longer I thought, the quieter the class room became. I had to end this, one way or the other, and end it quickly.

"...E - V - E"

"T-W-E-L-E-V-E is incorrect." My teacher's voice responded. "Please sit down, you did a good job, you should be proud."

How could I have missed that word?!?!?!?

From that point on for the next two weeks, my mind swirled with nothing but things that had something to do with 12. There were 12 months in a year, 12 eggs in a carton, 12 days of Christmas, 12 doughnuts in a doughnut box, a dozen of this, a dozen of that...they all floated inside my head like giant bubbles of disappointment.

On the 3rd week, I discovered Rubic's Cube...and I never looked back.