Now before you get all impressed by our selection, please keep in mind that this is my family:
This is also our Christmas card
Sorry to disappoint, but we didn’t exactly watch this event for educational purposes. For those of you who have never watched the spelling bee before, this is the Super Bowl of mutants and dorks, and we just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to spend a couple of hours having a good old time mocking these kids and their parents.
I believe the phrase you’re searching for is “what an asshole”. Yeah, I know. But my ticket to Hell was punched when I made fun of Leslie Fishbein after she died, so I don’t have anything really to lose.
Anyway, just for fun I decided to keep a running diary of the evening, share the magic with all my new pals on the website, and maybe drag you to Hell with me if you happen to laugh. You're going to feel guilty, but go ahead and let it out.
7:00- The show comes on, and our host for the evening is…Tom Freakin’ Bergeron. As a group, my whole family says, “Aw, crap”. He's so annoying, he makes me wish that Bob Saget was back on America's Funniest Videos. And I hate Bob Saget more than almost anything in the world.
Backstage doing interviews with the contestants is Erin Andrews from ESPN. This will be the only time in their lives that the boys in the event will be anywhere near a good looking girl.
7:05- Now, boys and girls, let’s meet the 12 finalists! Pay attention to this part, because I’m giving most of the contestants their own nicknames. You’ll see why in a second. If you think I’m writing out some of these names all night, you’re out of your friggin' mind.
Kyle Mou- Asian kid, 12, looks like he’s seven. Weighs around 29 pounds, and his head is perfectly round. His dad looks like The Donger from “16 Candles”.
Catherine Cojocaru- She’s 13 and looks like Jennifer Jason Leigh in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”. She’ll be “Fast Times Stacy”.
Sidharth Chand- 12, the first of many Indian kids that are here tonight. Dead ringer for Pedro from “Napoleon Dynamite”, including the full mustache. He’ll be just “Pedro”.
Austin Peneda- 13, looks like a Hispanic John Denver. Has that long bowl haircut and wire rimmed glasses. His name for tonight is Juan Denver. Get it? Juan Denver? Thank you- I'm here all week...
Justin Song- 13, big Asian kid. When he speaks, he has this deep voice that sounds like they’ve slowed down the tape of the show, He’ll be “Slo-Mo”.
Tia Thomas- 13, possibly the whitest girl I’ve ever seen. Doesn’t study spelling words outdoors very much, I imagine. We’ll call her Albino Girl. Acts almost normal. We determine she has no shot of winning.
Samia Nawaz- 13, of Indian descent. Writes words on the back of her hand before she spells them out. Other than that, semi-normal. Also has no chance.
Sameer Mishra- 13, pleasant looking Indian kid. His dad’s name is Krishna Mishra. You can’t make something like that up. I’ll venture to guess that he’s not from around here.
Kavya Shivashankar- 12, from…Kansas? Little sister looks like Dora the Explorer. Her dad’s name is… Merle. We guess that they’re in some kind of witness protection program. Something definitely amiss here.
Scott Remer- 14, best candidate to be an axe murderer. Has a strange smile, and his eyes look in different directions. Security needs to keep tabs on this kid. He’ll be “The Remer”, just because it sounds funny when I say it.
Jahnavi Iyer- 14, female, looks like a 36 year old dude. Has a mustache and one eyebrow, both of the same shape, thickness, and color. She’ll be known as “Unibrow”. But she’s not the most frightening looking contestant in the field…
Rose Sloan- Holy jumpin’ smokes. Rose is 13, big girl, breathes like Darth Vader, and has a giant mole above her lip. Her dad looks like Bill Gates, and her mom looks a little like Jabba the Hut. She’s now “Mole Girl”. God help us.
7:15- After an exhausting introduction, they show the stage, and it has the kids on one side, while their parents are sitting on the other. My oldest boy Mike says, “It looks like ‘Where’s Waldo’, except you have to find the white kids”. Mike gets the silver medal for Most Inappropriate Comment of the Evening.
7:20- They finally start spelling, and everyone makes it through the first round, except Juan Denver. He misses “tralatitious”, and his chances for 2008 crash and burn into the ocean (couldn’t resist the John Denver joke. Like I said- I’m already going to Hell. Screw it).
7:30- They’ve gone through two more rounds, and haven’t lost anybody else yet. The Remer spells his word, and then comes back to his chair and stares into the camera for way too long. Well, one of his eyes is staring. The other is looking for Erin Andrews. Mike says, “He’s going to die alone and cross-eyed”.
God, I love my kids.
7:35- They show the parents section again, and all the moms have one thing in common- they weigh around 347 pounds each. They need to get together and practice spelling “J-e-n-n-y C-r-a-i-g”.
7:40- 11 spellers still here- nobody’s missing any words. The family decides to try and pick the winner. I go for The Remer (again, just because I like saying that out loud), my wife Annie takes Slo-Mo, and the youngest boy Ben selects Pedro so he can say he “Voted for Pedro”.
Mike takes Kyle Mou, who’s little and has a round head, because Mike’s little and has a round head. Then my 12 year old, Sam, tabs Kavya Shivashankar, reasoning that if she can consistently spell her last name, she can spell anything. That’s too logical- I may kick him out of the family.
7:50- Sameer Mishra comes to the stage and gets the word “numnah”, which is a pad for a saddle. He says “Numbnut?” Swear to God. Best moment of the night so far. He recovers and spells the word right. Sameer will now be “Numbnut” for the rest of the evening.
8:00- Mole Girl’s turn. She gets the word “hemeralopia”. My wife says “that’s what that thing is on her lip”. Mole Girl goes all Darth Vader for a minute and a half, and then gets it right.
She just can’t go out. I need her for this story. Hang in for me, Mole Girl. Pretty please?
8:05- The Remer spells the word “lemel”, and then gives the camera the 20 second stare again with a shit-eating grin on his face. He definitely thinks he’s the coolest kid here. Which is a little like being the smartest person in Wyoming.
(Writer’s note- I noticed that lemel and Remer were both palindromes, meaning that they’re spelled the same backwards and forwards. See, I’m not just another pretty face. I have a mind, too. So stop staring at my tits.)
8:15- They come back from a commercial break, and take another wide shot of the stage with the spellers and their parents. My lovely wife Annie says, “Do you think it smells like curry up there?”
Ladies and gentlemen, your winner of the gold medal for Most Inappropriate Comment of the Evening!
I'll spend the next ten minutes pissed that I didn’t think of that one first.
8:25- Uh-oh, we finally lose another contestant. Slo-Mo misses “satagraha” and leaves the stage at a snail’s pace. But Erin Andrews touches him on the shoulder during the exit interview, and I think he has an accident in his khakis. Made a real cool orgasm face.
8:30- Little Kyle Mou goes out on “lapies” (I think I had a case of those in college), and joins his parents on the other side of the stage. The Donger is in tears- this definitely means more to him than Kyle. Settle down, Donger.
8:35- Rose takes a break this round, and lets her mole spell “fumagillin”. The mole gets it right, and they’re both on to the next round.
8:40- Fast Times Stacy crashes on “bogatyr”, and leaves the stage with a big case of the Red Ass. Her parents try to console her, but she’s not having any of it. Stacy’s pissed. She’ll feel better later, when she sees her boyfriend Mark Ratner. They’re madly in love…but still haven’t gone all the way yet.
(If you get that reference, give yourself a big gold star.)
8:45- They’re dropping like flies now. Unibrow misses “parfleche”, and then quickly gets loaded into an ambulance, where they’ll rush her to a beauty salon to have her eyebrows and lip waxed. This will take until next Thursday to complete.
We’re down to seven spellers remaining.
8:50- Cute little Samia tries to spell “huapango” on her hand, but this time the hand let her down. Shit, I wish I had a nickel for every time my hand let me down…
8:55- Oh, crap! Mole Girl misses “sheitel”, and she’s gone. She tumbles into her parents’ arms- man, this is hard to watch. Jabba the Hut consoles her daughter, while Bill Gates tries in vain to make the mole feel better.
I haven’t felt this badly since they cancelled “Queer As Folk”.
9:00- Say bye-bye to Kavya Pjufbnmfhdmdfn- she added an “e” to “ecrase”. Ecrase is a French word, which means to “chain smoke, never bathe, and surrender”. The French ecrase a lot. Goddamn, I hate the French.
9:05- You better alert security- The Remer just misspelled “thymele”. The smug, twisted smile just left his face, and he’s heading toward his parents looking a little like John Malkovich at the end of “In the Line of Fire”. His parents try to talk him down- he’s between them but still finding a way to maintain eye contact with both. No sudden moves for awhile, everybody…
Now we’re down to the final three- Pedro, Numbnut, and Albino Girl. I can’t believe Albino Girl made it this far. I’ve tried all night to find something wrong with her, and I just can’t, except of course, her pigmentation. And I can find something wrong with everybody. Her normalness is driving me crazy.
9:10- All three are hanging tough- they make it through two more rounds. I’m so excited; I’m puckering in all the wrong places. Numbnut’s dad is clapping like one of those mechanical monkeys with the cymbals. He needs to stop that.
9:15- Dammit! Albino Girl can’t navigate “opificer”. She should have had the judge use the word in a sentence, like, “No, I have not been drinking, opificer”. She cheerfully meets her parents with a big hug.
She’s so damn sweet, I just hate her. We’ll meet again, Albino Girl. We’ll meet again…
9:20- Now we’ve got Numbnut and Pedro going head to head. Numbnut gets “tallegio”, and Pedro follows with “introuvable”. Numbnut is correct with “esclandre”, and then Pedro stumbles on “prosopopoeia”. He leaves out the last “i” in the word. What a dumbass- that was so obvious.
All Numbnut has to do is spell one more word, and he is the big winner. Then Krishna can stop clapping like a moron. And the word is…“guerdon”?
Pedro got “prosopopoeia”, and Numbnut just has to spell guerdon? Shit, this is more anticlimactic than my wedding night (which, by the way, is still the best 19 seconds of my life).
Of course Numbnut spells the word, and walks away with the $40,000 in cash, plus the big gold trophy that is inscribed, “King of the Dinks”. But it just feels a little bit wrong, like when you see your parents kiss, or see the back of a thong on an old lady at the grocery store.
But it was still fun. As a family, we spelled a total of two words correctly tonight, and they were both by the eight year old. I knew I was screwed- if I didn’t have spell-check for this article it would look like Sanskrit. But there are more important things than intelligence, aren’t there?
Anyway, we’ll be back when the next beauty pageant comes up. Now there’s a good family night…
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