It’s fairly well known around these parts that The Morning Star team, also known as The Word Nerds, are the perennial bridesmaids at the Junction Literacy Centre Adult Spelling Bee Challenge.
Well, no more I tell you.
Um, although I’m not exactly sure what place out of 26 we came in, although it was likely below the 50th percentile, at least we didn’t come in second for the fourth time in recent memory.
No, that frustratingly close but oh-so-far-from-glory title went to the Bold ‘N Agers who actually lost out to the Queen Beez & Co. in a word scramble of all things to break a tie after the tie breaker.
That’s kind of like losing a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup final in a shootout after going four-on-four for a period, but I don’t want to make the runners-up feel any worse, after all I can empathize, times three.
Actually I had an uneasy feeling when I got to the Lodge, er Atrium, Wednesday morning early. That never happens, and Cara Brady was the only other team member there, plus they sat us next to our archrivals, the Okanagan College Eggheads.
They aren’t really our archrivals. It’s just they always win, and, well, we don’t.
(If you’ve been paying attention you’d know they didn’t win this year either, maybe cause they sat next to us, it’s hard to know.)
I even had a nice chat with OC principal Jim Hamilton about the news of the day and we wished each other well. Yeah, right.
But I started to get an uneasy feeling after the third person came by our table asking “So, you guys going to win this year?”
Of course it was all yellow-clad volunteers from the event with the best of intentions, but it kind of amped up the pressure a bit too.
And then when we went two for five in the first round my worst fears were realized, even though my math skills are worse than my spelling skills – we weren’t going to come in second, let alone win.
Although apparently our spelling of minutiae might have been OK according to the video replay booth in Toronto, it was a trivial point, so to speak.
But you know what, we all felt bad briefly because we’re competitive creatures, and pointed a few fingers even more briefly, ahem, it also took the pressure off somehow and the rest of the event was quite enjoyable, thank you very much.
Although a little rattled, but more relaxed, we pulled four out of five in the second round and would’ve got perfect if I didn’t think saccharin ended with an ‘e.’ Apparently it’s sweet enough without it.
But I redeemed myself in the tie breaker round, spelling escheat correctly even though I had never heard of the word before. It’s of the legal persuasion.
Ironically we got all three right in the tie breaker round for a moral victory, but a victory just the same.
And the real winner, of course, is the literacy centre that put on a great event and got $30,000 worth of love from the boosters gathered for breakfast on Wednesday morning. Plus it was a lot of fun as usual.
So for The Word Nerds, the Bold ‘N Agers and even the Eggheads, not to mention the other teams that bravely tried to spell words like loquacious and secateurs without being able to buy a vowel, like the Canucks and Leaf fans always say – hey, there’s always next year.
