MCL

A Stuttered Goodbye, A Quick S-P-E-L-L

Last year, when my driver's license was pending due to a clerical error by the fine folks at the Jones County Police Department in Laurel, Mississippi, I was stuck in the pergatory known as New Orleans. All of my possessions were spread throughout apartments in the city:
My bed, chair, desk and dresser were in Noah and Rob's mansion; all of my clothes were at the lawfirm of Kellough, Fernandez and Phelps; books and cds and other thises and thats were at Chris and Tanya's. And most importantly, the love of my life - my retarded cat - was getting shelter from the storm at Alex's place.
Where was I? Usually, I found myself somewhere between drunk and hungover in what amounted to a Three Week Farewell. Every night, there seemed to be a new reason - or excuse - to celebrate, and my friends never pass up a celebration. Usually, these nights would begin and end at the Milan Lounge, a little hole in the wall that Harry Carey once refered to as "Wrigleyville South" as a tribute to the devoted Deep South self-deprecators who drank their baseball worries away during each and every televised game. The moments that occured after leaving the bar are nothing to speak of (mostly because I can't remember them), but they manifested themselves with me waking up on that famous green couch that so many of us know so well, the one that at the time sat in the slowly deteriorating lawfirm loft. Gripping my back. Massaging my head. Trying to decide whether to have a pitcher of water of a pitcher of beer.
During one of these mornings (or afternoons, depending on how you see 2:30 PM), I discovered something about which I had heard but to which I never bothered to pay any attention. But it's sometimes amazing to me the things we have the capacity to endure while hungover; on this day, I woke up to find the television on. The channel: ESPN, the SPORTS network. The SPORT: the annual Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee.
At first, I decided to watch a little bit for two disparate reasons: number one, I was mildly curious; number two, the remote was not within my six foot wingspan. Three hours later, however, I realized that a person with an addictive personality can get addicted to anything - alcohol, cigarettes, sugar, American Idol - and I was Hooked on Spelling. At the end of the game - er, I mean, 5th-8th grade spelling contest - I refered to it as the Greatest Show on earth. The next morning - anticipating another late night - I set the alarm on my phone (as well as the alarm on the television, and the alarm on my watch) in order to ensure that I wake up for the Finals.
You couldn't write drama better than this. These are kids who have been subjected to hour upon rigorous hour of training in Latin, Greek, Spanish, French, German, and every other language spoken on God's Green Earth, and in one instant, one "gnathostome," one "schipperke," one "oestradiol," the kid is watching from the rafters. Will she faint? Will he cry? Will she burst into a turrets-like rage after she starts to spell gneiss (a metaphoric rock formed at high pressures and temperatures...thank you, Dr. Cameron) with an "n" before she realizes what she's done?! This is the stuff of legends. Last year, an Indiana boy - from South Bend, in fact - took home the big prize (which, at $28,000, needs to be raised SIGNIFICANTLY to reflect the amount of money this contest produces for ESPN and Scripps Howard nowadays). This year, it was a very deserving Anurag Kashyap, a 13-year old who nailed "appoggiatura" to defeat Samir Patel (an 11-year old I rooted for the entire show) and Aliya Deri.
The beauty of the contest: you interact, you relate, and more often than not, you're being outsmarted by someone half your age. It's the most humbling thing on television.
But I'll tell you what...Appoggiatura? I beat Kashyap to the punch by forty seconds! I stood up. I cheered. I looked into the television and said, I shit you not, BOOYAH! And I was alone, all alone in my apartment. Booyah, I said to the television. Booyah.