Around the Kitchen Table: Lists & labels
Every family usually has a good speller. They’re the ones you can ask to spell any word, and they rattle it off like they’re staring at a dictionary. They’re the people you yell at across the house when you’re wrapping a gift or writing a text or a card, “How do you spell congratulations?”
Usually, this same question gets asked multiple times over the course of a childhood (or a lifetime). I have discovered that there’s no expiration date on a poor speller. They never seem concerned about learning certain words. Why would they when they have a walking, breathing dictionary available?
Being a good speller came naturally to me. Mom was an excellent speller, and I guess I could claim it was genetic, but only two of us five kids became good spellers. I reckon Dad’s poor spelling gene must have knocked the good one clean out of the other three.
Dad was a painting contractor for over 60 years, and most of that time, Mama typed up his bids while sitting at our green Formica-topped kitchen table, correcting the same words repeatedly: “prim” for prime, “grage” for garage, “metel” for metal and “calk” for caulk were just some of the words. She would shake her head as she carefully typed on our old Smith-Corona typewriter using the hunt and peck method. Mama celebrated the day she got the first erasable bond paper, so she didn’t have to use that correcting fluid that always made such a mess. We still have two boxes of that paper in Dad’s closet along with some of his original 1969 letterhead.
(In Dad’s defense, his early schooling didn’t help much, and when he was raising all of us, he had little time to read. But he did make up for it in his 80s and 90s, burning through about two books a week.)
Being an avid reader seems like it would be the road to better spelling, but my hubby disproves that theory. He reminds me of Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor on “Home Improvement.” He will hear a word and think he knows the spelling and the meaning, but he will invariably mispronounce it and use it in the wrong context. Over the years, this led to moments of blank stares from me followed by a collapse into hysterics. Like the time we were trying to find the movie theater where “Jurassic Park” was playing (circa 1993). We stopped at a 7-Eleven to ask if they might know. Marc went inside to ask while I waited in the truck. He had pulled right up front, so I could see the exchange between him and the clerk at the counter. He said something and the girl behind the counter looked confused. He repeated it and the girl started laughing. Then she waved a fellow employee over, pointed at my bewildered husband who shrugged his shoulders, waved at the grinning clerks and then came out to the truck. Climbing in, he muttered, “Well, they weren’t any help.” I asked him what happened and he shook his head. “I don’t know… I just asked them if they knew where ‘Geriatric Park’ was playing and they started laughing. I don’t see what’s so funny.”
I fell over in the seat, howling. In between gasps, I said, “Honey, it’s not ‘Geriatric Park,’ it’s ‘Jurassic Park’!”
Visions of ancient, toothless T-rexes and decrepit velociraptors on walkers and canes filled my head. I was crying at that point. By the time we finally found the theatre and settled into our seats, I had stopped laughing, but all through the movie those handicapped dinos kept popping into my head. It forever changed the way I see dinosaurs in general. I think a famous “Far Side” cartoon was along those same lines. I hate to tell Gary Larson, but my smart, albeit vocabulary-challenged, husband came up with the idea first.
To his credit, my hubby doesn’t get mad but laughs along with me. He says his goal is to entertain and encourage. I usually encourage him to use a dictionary. But when he or my son label food for the fridge, a dictionary won’t help – you need an interpreter. I will admit that it is entertaining: enculada (enchilada), tortels (tortillas), umpas (empanadas) and other interesting stuff. To be fair, it’s mostly food words he misspells now, which is strange considering how important food is to his daily schedule.
My son takes after his father. He would leave messages on our family’s whiteboard that would take three of us to figure out. He also had the habit of writing said messages in permanent marker, completely ignoring the erasable one hanging next to the board. One such message is still there, 25 years later. I’ve tried everything to get it off, but it is still legible. It meant to say “Be back at 6:00,” but the 6 wasn’t complete and the 0s were questionable. It looks for all the world like “Be back at God.” And they say nothing lasts anymore.
Their creativity is a challenge when it comes to shopping, however. Their entries sometimes give me pause in the grocery aisle. Like, where would I find the Country Crotch? (Do I really want to?) Some of my other favorites are crim chese (cream cheese), potatoe crips (potato chips), Spit (Sprite), tortel crips (tortilla chips), spigeti sase (spaghetti sauce), jalpinos (jalapenos), etc.
Over the years though, I’ve learned that when I get irritated at spelling out loud “there, their or they’re” for the 47th time, I remind myself of all the things they can do better and easier than me. I’m especially fond of their “other abilities” when I want my tire changed, a hole dug or the kitchen sink unstopped. Not that I can’t do those things myself, but it’s nice to be able to pass a chore along. Besides, I am pretty worn out after all that spelling.
by Tamra M. Bolton
