If I lived anywhere else on the planet aside from Florida, I’d probably think it was mean to make fun of old people. But since I have to drive behind them and wait for them to sort coupons in the Publix express lines, I’m elated to find a story about an old people spelling bee. And it’s everything that you could expect from old people being asked to spell words.
Not only do the 15 contestants constantly mishear the words, but the words that they’re given are absolute gold. Flaccid? Seriously? Why not make them spell euthanasia or cerebrovascular? But it doesn’t end there. Not when the old people were asked their opinions, which you know are just as great.
There was 79-year-old Johanna Rivera, who is not a fan of spell-check on the computer.
“I think there’s too much help for kids. I think they have to learn to do it themselves,” she said.
(Via NBC 2)
“In my day, we didn’t have fancy computers to spell for us. We could only practice our alphabet by dipping our socks into the pools of blood that we’d let out from stitching burlap sacks and writing on walls. Later, we’d steal a sack to wear to school, but our families only had one sack so all of the kids would have to wear it together.”
The winner was “80-something” Alida Morgan, who spelled “tacitly.” Tacit, of course, means silent or unspoken. We love you, old people.
