When I did my first triathlon, the butterflies waged war on my insides and I went to the restroom a lot.  This competition was no different, internally, but I had a really nice Shiraz as a coping mechanism, courtesy of the fine collaborative effort between Pat McDermott of King’s Books, and Pat Irwin, principal of Lincoln High School.

Team Volcano (comprised of myself, Jessica C-B, and my friend, Amanda Morstad) arrived to the King’s Adult Spelling Bee last night to find that, well, people were serious.  A woman demanded the number one, because she would win.  I thought she’d do it, since she was hell-bent in attitude AND an English teacher. But she went out in round three, I think.  I don’t know for sure, since the who’s on what teams sort of faded into my own nervous twitchy energy as the competition progressed.

At the very beginning, Jennifer Zamira, School of Urban Literacy teacher at Lincoln, echoed my thoughts, as she said, “I’m scared.  I’m questioning my abilities.”  My partner and I exchanged nervous glances and laughter, and tried not to think about looking like dumbasses.

Then we saw other teams fall.  First team fallen was our friend Jennifer with her partner Heather Conklin (who would return with special education teacher Marty Wagner and last a couple of rounds). Jen stated, upon leaving the “smart pit,”  “Big Loser.  Bee Eye Gee.”  She flipped her number neck-sign around to her “failyur is impossible” message, and scribbled out the “im.”

I’m very afraid I laughed too much, made a spectacle of myself with my “end zone dances” and irritated a certain “real” reporter in the audience with my antics, like taking photos of the audience, photos of the caller Carolyn Linden (Lyndon?) and photos of the “smart pit” (see below).
I’m very much afraid that I enjoyed myself too much.  Being around smart people is a heady experience.  They are reading people, spelling people, intelligently-joking people, and they make me twitchy with joy.

And in the end?

Amanda and I WON.  Freaking WON. 

Words like “iridescent,” “diurnal,” “oscillate,”  “prurient,” and “acquisitive” fluttered about, and then round five “In which our minds begin to throb” brought us “connoisseur,” “ameliorate,” “milieu” and then, round six brought “bourgeoisie” (the word that took out the last men standing, principal Irwin and bookstore co-owner McDermott) and then came the tough words, words so unspeakably tough I can’t even recall them to type them.

Eventually only Team 23 (Yvonne Mickey and Diane Ayers) and team 25 (Amanda and myself) were standing.  If one team missed a word, the remaining team had to spell two in a row. Each team missed a word, and then Amanda and I were lucky.  Our winning word: “plebeian.”

I have to say, the $100 gift certificate from King's Book's  and then the $25 gift certificate for Calendula (for spelling gladiolus correctly), were a sort of sweet, sustaining, yummy, icing on the cake.  The cake part of it?  I was able to have some sort of cathartic experience releasing Mr. Robertson from the “ape” incident, and Amanda had a feeling of vindication. 

As of now? Amanda and I are the smartest people in Tacoma!

GO TEEM VAHLCAYNOE! â€" Jessica Corey-Butler