Sesquipedalophobia

We’ve been settling in here nicely in Seattle. I have gotten into my new work routine, we are visiting new neighborhoods throughout the city with an eye on home ownership, and sampling new bars and restaurants a couple of times a week. So why in the hell did I find myself at a Jillian’s sports bar on a Monday evening? The Seattle Spelling Bee, my friends.

The second Monday of every month, the Seattle Spelling Bee is held and anyone of drinking age is invited. Diana and I took a 15 minute walk to the bar and scoped out the set-up a few minutes early. There were already a few potential spellers scattered throughout the bar, they were easily identified, as they just had that “look” of competitive nerds. One guy even went all out with a white short-sleeved shirt, a black necktie, a set of red suspenders and a pocket protector.

For a $5 entry fee you were allotted your score sheet with spaces for 40 words, a piece of scratch paper, a ticket to a drawing and a #2 pencil. The score sheet was for the first stage of the competition, which entailed forty words being announced by the host. The object was to write down the correct spelling for as many of the forty words as you could, with the top 12 spellers advancing to the more familiar stand-up-at-the-mic-and-spell portion of events.

Our new friend Rachel showed up just a couple of words into the written round and the host was nice enough to halt the proceedings and get her caught up with the first few words. After twenty words were announced, everyone traded pages and graded the other players. I was feeling pretty good after the first half as I had correctly spelled eleven of the twenty given words. However, the second round did me in, with only seven correct words in the second set. Including misses on “mayonnaise” and, remarkably enough, “um” (I over-thought that one a touch). This allowed Diana to beat me by one point in the written portion, which irked me just a touch.

There were some seriously hard words in the written round; I would say I knew the meaning of about 25% of them. Anything that sounded familiar seemed like a relief, until it turned out the word was “indubitably” or “zinnia”.

Not only did Diana beat me in the written portion, but it turned out hers was the cut-off score for the top twelve oral section. I stewed and wished I could be playing air hockey. Diana ended up doing fantastic in the championship rounds, ending up in fourth place out of the top twelve spellers. However, this did not quite put her in the running for prizes, which were essentially bar tabs.

So, if you ever want to see a bunch of grown-ups acting just as weird and twitchy as the twelve-year olds that will be in the Scripps next month, come visit and make sure your stay is on the second Monday of the month. Even if we bomb out again, we can always just say screw it and go play pop-a-shot.