Susan Senator

Yesterday I participated in a Spelling Bee run by our town’s educational foundation, one of those private groups that raises funds to pilot projects at the schools, with the hopes that the school department will pick up the cost the following year. I have grown to realize that we need these kinds of groups, because they can be more creative and quick about what they start, and they cover certain needs that might otherwise be ignored because of tight budgets. Ideally, of course, we wouldn’t need this; our taxes should be enough. But they are not. And so we have these private foundations, and I see that they do a lot of good, particularly in terms of building teacher morale.

The Spelling Bee is one of my favorite town activities of the year. I am always asked to be on a team, because I am not a bad speller but mostly because I get so excited about the thing! Each team is supposed to come up with a theme and a costume. That is the part I love. So when I was on the School Committee, I spelled for the School Committee, and our team was various things over the years, such as the “S’Cool Committee,” where we dressed “cool,” with jeans, leather, sunglasses, etc. This year I spelled for my little guy’s school and we were the Lincoln Spellbinders. So one teammate made beautiful wizard hats and I brought bellydance gear and Max’s black Sith robe. Chris wore the robe and looked like a wizard; Lisa and I wore hipscarves over our jeans and matching veils and my cobra bracelets and the wizard hats. I shimmied onto the stage a tiny bit.

We did respectably, though we did not win our round, or “swarm.” The words were incredibly hard, I can’t even remember what they were. Lisa was a total spelling ringer, a doctor who is also very well read, so she had great instincts!

I love spelling, but I really only care about the costume. I was sure that we would win the costume; I’ve never won in all these years but I have always had good costumes! And this year, the superintendent (whom I hired, mind you) was the JUDGE for the costumes. So I shook my finger at him mockingly, as if to say, “you owe me!”

Well, I guess he did not think so! Because the people who won were three men dressed as Queen Bees, complete with wig and tiara. As my friend said, “Well, you guys were good, but you can’t top men in drag.”