The Truth About Spelling Bees

There was once a bee that lived in a house. It didn’t live in a hive like normal bees. It didn’t even have all its wings (we’ll get into that later). It walked around like people. Well like some people. Weird people who walk like bees. The thing about this bee is that it suffered a horrible horrible ailment. For this he was shun by its fellow bees. He was hated by all the other insects. Specially the ants. They hated his stripes. No one knew why. Maybe they liked the colors. Anyways this poor bee realized he was allergic to the most beautiful substance a bee could taste. This bee was allergic to honey. It would sneeze uncontrollably for hours even at the sight of some harmless flowers. No one would say "bless you", they wouldn’t even look at him. His mom, "Momma Bee", She was ashamed to have a son who would not continue on with the family business (Honey, of course). She said that they had a reputation to protect. After a brief attempt to fit in with his fellow brothers and sisters (He tried to become ‘supervisor of honey productions’), he was fired for not giving the workers enough time to "stop and smell the roses". When he left, there was nothing sweet about his departure. He flew away as far and fast as he could. "Is there anyone out there who could ever love me?" He asked. He flew and flew for hours. Actually it was only 27 minutes, sorry about the exaggeration. It just kills me to see people (or bees) be rejected and ignored. By the way his name was "Buzz", yeah I know, that’s why I didn’t mention it earlier. Another thing I should mention about this bee is that he was very out of shape. A lifetime of avoiding labor didn’t give him much stamina to show off. After 23 minutes he started feeling a little woozy. At 27 he was out. He fainted and dropped like a fly, a fly with stripes and allergic reactions to honey. Luckily for him he was falling right on top of a busy highway full of cars. Oh wait, that’s not very lucky at all. Cars zipped by at crazy speeds. He was unconscious and falling uncontrollably. He inched closer and closer to death. Amazingly, the wind picked up and blew him out of the way of a few cars. He landed on the hot pavement, and was still completely dazed. The next car whooshed by and kicked up the wind pushing Buzz out to the side of the street. The "shoulder", as people like to call it.

Even though I can never figure out where the "head" would be. On the "shoulder’ there was a cigarette butt that was taking its last breaths. Buzz landed right on the sizzling butt, and burned his fragile little wings. Awwww….Wing-less, he woke up and cried because of the pain. He crawled to the nearest rock. He held on to it and tried to think of where he could go to find shelter. Maybe he could find some other bees to take care of him for a while. Still tired and feeling weak, he was blurred when he saw the ants pick him up and carry him away. Before he knew it, he found himself inside a house. The ants had realized he had no wings and that was their favorite part to eat. They left him alone and dropped him off in a ditch, and by ditch I mean the floor of a currently empty house. There he spent the next few years (I mean hours, again sorry for the exaggeration), learning to feed himself on bacteria and learning how to read. Yup that’s right, what you thought Buzz was stupid? What was that? It’s impossible? Well why don’t you tell him yourself? Mr. Realistic... Anyways, he read a bunch of books. Mainly cooking books cause that’s all he had around (Ironic, I know). One day the ants came back and this time they didn’t care that he didn’t have any wings. They were hungry and they were going to eat him. He was startled and quickly put up his guard: Two match sticks. "Get back ants! You have no business here" – "Oh but we do….you see many of our people have been killed. It seems that the humans have managed to create a poison that looks so much like real food that we can’t tell the difference. Now we have grown hungry and have no choice but to eat you, even if you don’t taste good." "But you can’t!" Buzz replied angrily "I have learned to live without food for years" (it had only been hours, again I apologize) "You can do the same" Buzz concluded. The Ants paid no attention to Buzz’s reasoning. "We are going to eat you. You are just gonna have to deal with that" Buzz had to think fast in order to save his sweet ass. The thought was light that filled his tiny tiny brain. "I got it!" He told the approaching ants. "I got a solution that is perfect!" He yelled excitedly. He led them back to where they came from and told them his idea. The ants were skeptical at first, but they were desperate and this seemed like it could work. The ants took Buzz to the place he’d requested. He showed the ants the big box of poison they had mistaken for food. On the side of it there was bold lettering that read "ANT POISON". He read it and told the ants what it meant. They all looked at each other and realized that Buzz would save their colony! Buzz was nicknamed the "Spelling bee" shortly after. The legend, the myth, the savior. His story spread around ant generations for years to come (and I’m not exaggerating now). He resumed the rest of his life interpreting and reading for ants. He even taught a few how to do it themselves. Years later, in 1925, some ants got together and wrote up a list of frequently misspelled words to practice teaching other ants how to read. They lost the list and it became the possession of several bored boys who had nothing else to do but to quiz each other with the list. The quizzing became a neighborhood competition. When the ants found out, they quickly wrote a letter to the boys telling them to give their list back. They refused. Instead they agreed to pay homage to the creator of the competition by always crowning their winner "Spelling Bee Champion". The ants were happy, and so were generations of kids who would later become obsessed with words no one uses in real life. Talk about being realistic. Anyways, back at the bee hives it is still somewhat of a sore subject. On the one hand, the "spelling bee" put bees right on the map (I personally had never hear of bees before this wonderful game). On the other hand, it put unrealistic expectations on the rest of the bee population. They can’t spell, only Buzz could. One can only hope for every bee, ant, and human to be able to read, write, and spell anything they can wrap their heads around. And that my friends, it’s spelled I-M-A-G-I-N-A-T-I-O-N.