The Boss of the Bee: Me again as Word Master

(688 words)

The nearest exit was blocked by three 8-year-old girls who at the moment were all bawling their eyes out.

Exit no. 2 was crowded with chairs, children and the folding table packed with all the gift baskets.

That meant the least obstructed way out was to leap straight off the stage and dash down the middle aisle of the Greensburg Salem Middle School auditorium and just pray I could dodge the 80 or so parents and supporters who would, I was certain, descend en masse and hold me until the cops showed up.

It was the 9th annual Greensburg Rotary Spelling Bee. I was again word master and the situation was on the verge of unraveling.

We were down to just two students — two darling girls — and neither could spell the two words in a row required to declare a victor.

The first girl would correctly spell mesa, but then flub xylophone. Then the next girl would nail pigeon, but stumble over hieroglyphics.

It went on like that for 20 minutes. It looked like it might never end. The words were only getting more difficult.

Rhombus, ventriloquist, terrestrial, handkerchief  … the girls were taking turns misspelling the clinchers.

Unless you’ve been, you have no idea how nerve-wracking a competitive spelling bee among elementary children is. I’ve been to many less compelling NFL games.

The children are so precious. They’ve studied so hard. They are eager to do well.

And when they misspell aorta, it looks like theirs is going to rupture right there on stage.

This was the second year they’d asked me to be word master and it looks like the gig is mine until I show up drunk and for fun start asking the little 3rd graders to spell words like poopy or fart.

I learned last night my predecessor had been a prominent female broadcaster who fell out of favor when she gave into the temptation show off.

I’m not saying she was Diane Sawyer, but she acted like she was Diane Sawyer.

“It was unbelievable,” a judge told me. “When she told one kid to spell tsunami, she said, ‘The Japanese pronounce the word Ta-SU-ne-MAY.’ Geez, these kids don’t care about Japanese pronunciations.”

I told her that would never happen with me.

I despise psilent letters.

What did worry me was a crying kid could shatter my reserve and I’d be forced to act like a caring human being.

We know how that can lead to trouble.

See, as word master, I’m a perfect cypher. I dress nice and have a pleasant smile the whole time, but show zero emotion. I’m like “Hunger Games” emcee Caesar Flickerman only with a mood-tempering hangover.

Last year, it took me a while to achieve this facade. I remember having to force myself not to silently mouth the correct letters to the boys. Sure, I understand the necessity of being impartial, but I’ll do whatever I can to help a kid from the home team win.

I really started getting nervous when three of the girls started to bawl.

Any misstep or misspeak on my part it could lead to controversy.

But I have a precious 8-year-old girl at home. She cries, too. And when she does, my instinct is drop whatever I’m doing, pick her up in my Daddy arms and squeeze until my shirt’s soaked up all the tears.

Imagine the scandal if I did that with some other Daddy’s daughter?

Can you spell molester?

I’d be dismissed from future word master duties for reasons more felonious than a pretentious pronunciation of Ta-SU-ne-MAY.

Happily, we soon declared a winner. The runner-up failed on the word strategy and the eventual winner brought home the trophy by correctly spelling first encyclopedia then quadrilateral.

It was all very impressive.

Even more impressive, I made it though the whole night without a single mispronunciation or flub. Parents and organizers said my enunciations were flawless and I’ll be welcomed back next year.

I went home without having caused any parental dismay or scandal.

And that to me spells relief.

Related . . .

What happened at last week’s spelling bee

Word Master: I’m the boss of the bee

An alphabetically-ordered world

Expense accounting the National Spelling Bee

Searching for Mr. Stupid

Mom struggles with new remote

My mother stared at the new cable remote the way the ancients must have stared at a solar eclipse.

For a minute, I thought she was going to run into her bedroom and slam the door.

But the powerful demands of another glowing pagan god, the 42-inch Toshiba flat screen, exerted an even greater pull and my Mom is convinced she’ll perish without Diane Sawyer in the morning.

Thus, we began the ritual warfare where the impatient offspring must teach a techno-phobic elderly parent how to work a harmless battery-powered device that 5 year olds work the way Billy the Kid did Colt .45s.

Really, I think I could get through the process if only I were allowed to shout profanity. I’d be fine if at my breaking point I could just dash out on the porch and deploy echoed f-bombs from the fifth floor balcony of the Pittsburgh high rise where my 76-year-old mother nests.

But, I swear, I can’t swear because if I did she’d think I was swearing at her not the situation and that would break my heart. Plus, even if she did understand my rage was aimed elsewhere, she’d say, "Now, you know I don’t like it when you use that kind of language,” and I’d turn into a little boy again and feel that peculiar sort of shame that 46-year-old potty mouths like me really should be over.

Like most sons, I love my dear white-haired mother. But that kind of love is fraught with challenges in a world that keeps zooming past at warp speed.

See, she didn’t need a new 54-button Comcast remote. But the recent switch to digital required Comcast send her a new receptor box. I drove the hour from my home and installed it.

I was happy to. I take the kids, we get to enjoy time with grandma and I get to feel like a good son who responds to simple tasks with cheerful efficiency.

I gave her a brief tutorial that touched on only the most basic functions of the new remote.

Two days later, she called and said she’d pushed a wrong button and had been without the big TV since we left. She could still use the small boxy TV in the bedroom, but in today’s day and age I could get charged with parental neglect if word of that sort of cruelty ever got out.

So back I went that night. I used the TV remote to key the set to channel 3 (then hid that troublemaking TV remote). I handed her the new whiz-bang cable remote and resumed my simple instructions. It seemed to take and the two of us sat down to watch the fine 1998 movie, “Waking Ned Devine.” She loved it, although she scolded that she “could have done without all that profanity.”

Profanity? I wondered. I must not have been paying attention.

We hugged, I said goodbye and drove back home.

I called again the next day. It wasn’t working again. She didn’t want me to make that drive yet again but I thought of the poor dear forced to watch Good Morning America on a screen that makes the U.S. weather map look like a postage stamp. I said I’d be right there.

This time I took scissors, paper and tape. I cleverly, I thought, made an ingenious remote mask that concealed all the button clutter. Banished were “GUIDE,” “PIP,” “MUTE,” “ON DEMAND,” "AUX" and a host of other button functions she’ll never need.

I told her to leave the television on all the time and to never alter the channel or the volume. In a world with more than 700 channel options, I was convinced she could get by with just one.

It didn’t matter. Somehow, someway, she SNAFU’d it all over again (and she’d cringe if she knew the derivation of that witty military acronym).

I called Comcast and asked if they had a three button remote -- on/off, volume and channel. Really, that’s all she needs.

“This is a very common complaint with the elderly,” he said.

If it’s so common, why can’t Comcast do something about it?

“Well, the demand is for more functions and that’s not going to change.”

Oh, yes, it will. There is a rising appetite for simplicity as brilliantly exemplified in an excellent Wired magazine article “The Good Enough Revolution: When Simple & Cheap is Just Fine.”

A backlash is brewing. My mother, a woman with whom I entrust the care of my beloved children in a 2-ton motor vehicle moving at 60 mph, should not be made to feel like an idiot by her inability to turn on a television and watch basic cable.

And I shouldn’t have to drive once again to her home to remove the offending box and turn back the cable clock to two weeks ago when she knew how to work a simple remote, which I must do tonight.

“I’m so sorry for putting you through all this,” she said.

I said I was sure I’d put her through lots worse all those years ago.

A widow for five years now, she worries about being a burden to her children and the loss of her independence.

I pray to God that He’ll ease the tensions bedeviling her and other seniors struggling with unnecessary tech troubles.

And I pray the pagan tech gods in places like Silicon Valley will find creative and simple solutions to these sorts of problems long before my own kids are stuck dealing with me.