Under a Spell

I was a big speller in my earlier years. School champ two years, a regional winner once (never went to the National Spelling Bee, though I should have--a story for another time). In high school, I spelled for our high school forensic team my senior year (forensics isn't just for those debate-team show-offs, you know) and took second in my city (Va. Beach), first in my region (Tidewater, a six-city area) and third in the state (Virginia). If you want to meet someone who literally owns medals in spelling, I'm your gal. (I cried through a lot of Spellbound, though not because it made me sad--it actually made me very happy and hopeful.)

All of which leads me to another great list from McSweeney's: Sentences That, If Used by Judges in a Spelling Bee, Would Prove Totally Unhelpful to Contestants Attempting to Derive the Meaning of the Word.

Reading this list is the spelling bee contestant's equivalent to the "I dreamed I had to take a final exam in a class I'd never attended" genre of nightmares. Except you'll wake up laughing instead of shaking.