The Irony of it All

Kudos go out to my neighbor, B, who won his school's spelling bee today. When I heard he won, my first thought was, "I need to go to Bruster's and get him an ice cream cake to celebrate". My first thought for almost anything that needs celebrated is, "I need to go to Bruster's and get an ice cream cake". So after school, I ran a couple errands, and stopped by to pick up the cake. Yes, they had Oreo cookie cake already made up...life's looking pretty good right now. So the nice high school girl asked me what color I wanted the writing in. Decisions, decisions, decisions. Now having only girls to buy for, the colors pink and purple immediately came to mind. But being a boy, B may not appreciate said colors. Then I thought blue...blue is a boy color; too generic. Oh, wait...I know...his school color is green. So I decided on green, and all I needed to say was "congratulations". Simple, right?

WRONG! It is my hope that tonight was Miss High School Girl's first day on the job. After she found the green icing, she was trying to figure out how to make it write on the cake. Uh, oh. I think we're in trouble. That thought was confirmed when Miss High School Girl asked the "manager" who was a couple years older, how to spell congratulations. Oh, my...and my students wonder why I get so upset when they can't spell correctly.

So after they discuss the correct spelling of the word congratulations, she starts writing it on the cake. I notice there is much discussion occuring around the cake; I also notice how wobbly her hand is as she is writing. I really didn't think stopping by picking up an ice cream cake would be this difficult. I wait, and I wait, and. I. wait...

"Wait", I say. "How 'bout we just keep it simple and make it say, "Congrats". I really didn't mean to stress the poor girl out; I was simply trying to do a good deed. "No", came the reply. "she's almost got it". Oh, my goodness. Perhaps spelling should be added to the employment application for Bruster's. She was so proud of herself; she brought the cake over (we won't even go into the trouble she had trying to figure out how to unfold the box and fold the lid flap over...you can only imagine). I looked at the cake, paid for it, took it from the counter, and walked away shaking my head. After all that, I presented my neighbor with a cake that proudly said, "CONGRATULATION".

You can bet your bottom dollar my students will be focusing more on spelling in the coming weeks; you never know, they may work at Bruster's one day. Congatulation, B, we're proud of you!

P.S. Remember you have until December 3rd to vote for Susan so she can take her son to the Barth Syndrome conference this summer.