easy as 1-2-3
The agony. The ecstasy. The white polo shirts. The spelling bee!
This was the first year they showed the National Spelling Bee on ABC in prime time (it had been broadcast by ESPN in the previous years) and I haven't been sucked into something so hard and so fast since Deal or No Deal premiered this season. Spelling has a special place in my heart, since (1) I can't do it at all, and am only capable of posting here because webmaster Kyle affixed our template with spell check for my sloppy ass (2) Before I met her in middle school, my best friend had won the town-wide spelling bee as a 5th grader and kept her championship name tag up in her room for the next two decades, which I definitely did not mock her mercilessly for and (3) one of the kids in the documentary "Spellbound" hails from my hometown. And yes, he was the one who launched into an automated voice to ask "Does-this-sound-like-a-musical-robot?" at random times. We're all going to be working for him one day.
The spelling bee producers are some of the best/ worst offenders in the It's Gonna Take a Montage school of competition footage. It's worth it to watch just for the clip of the one kid who took this time in front of the mic to use his best Napoleon Dynamite voice and ask "Do the chickens have large talons?" I would want to marry him if that weren't dirty and perverted.
I had a strong favorite from the get-go last night: Saryn Hooks. She was mistakenly booted and then reinstated (scandal!) and was also, far and away, the hottest speller in the final rounds. Not that that's saying much. Kind of like attending a comic convention or, say, the college of william & mary, having conditioned hair and no visible facial deformities makes you Angelina Jolie. Even when not flanked by nerds, though, I'm confident that Saryn would still be a babe. Reminiscent of a young Jennifer Connelly in "Labyrinth." And, whereas other competitors listed their interests as "crafts" and "online chatting," she put down "shopping" and "horseback riding." She and I are meant to be bestest friends.
Saryn kicked ass in rounds 8 through 12ish, besting the last remaining homeschooled student and the last remaining Indian kid, both triumphs in their own right. Indian kid was a deadly word assassin. Right up until he was eliminated, you didn't see him sweat or think twice before annihilating his words. This kid would slit your throat on his way to Dunkin' Donuts and never look back. My fear of him was palpable. But Saryn gave him a cool, calm "I wish the goblins really would come take you away" look, and down he went.
When Saryn went out, I turned the TV off and stomped away. (alright, if we're going to play the honesty game, a family favorite at interventions and religious holidays in my house, I turned to my previously recorded episode of Made where Annoying Accent girl wants to be made girly for her big sister's bridal shower. And big sister has a heart of stone, claims upfront that she never had a bond with her little sister, shows no emotion during her heartfelt, pages-long toast that she took months planning, and gives a stony thank you at the end of it all. Best wishes to your groom).
But I was drawn back to the bee– largely due to my outrage that there was a canadian left in the final two. First toronto gets a baseball team, and now this bullshit. Get lost, hockey playing pacifist. Go back to prince edward island with anne of green gables or whatever.
In the end, my fiery rage met its intended goal– the canuck lost. Even better, she lost to a girl from Jersey. Tramps like us, baby we were born to run. R-U-N.
Add comment June 2nd, 2006