Why I cried during Spelling Bee

I saw Spelling Bee The Musical and I cried my eyes out.

It's not particularly cool to admit that, but something about seeing adults play children who spell words wrong just sent me over the edge. It's embarrassing. But more embarrassing things have happened. Like in the 11th grade, at Karen Green’s party, when I experienced a spontaneous nose bleed in the middle of making out with Brad Morrison. Brad Morrison, the guy I had dreamed about all year while listening to Phil Collin’s “Against All Odds”. That was a trillion times more embarrassing than sobbing through Putnam County’s Spelling Bee. No amount of googling has ever turned up any evidence on Brad Morrison. I figure if you can’t find someone on Google, they’re not doing anything special. He’s probably a suburban dad working in the transportation industry (mostly chemicals and soy bean oils) or private investigator. Or he lives happily in a place where there is no google. You can definitely find me on google – mostly from a New York Times article where I made some nasty comments about new mothers, babies and those ridiculous SUV strollers called Bugaboos that clog up New York City street sidewalks. It’s better than being ungoogleable...I think.

So Spelling Bee is supposed to be adorable. And it is adorable. I thought I'd hate the adult-playing-children part of it – the image of an adult who dons a baby sounding voice for effect makes me cringe – but the actors were so damn good, they didn’t push, and therefore, I just went with it. Like a vegetarian to a juice bar – I threw down a little too much money, downed my mulched grass, and deemed it delicious.

The problem was I couldn’t handle the kids losing. Seriously. I hated watching them follow the script, spell their word wrong on cue, and have to leave the stage. Seeing an adult play a child whose dreams are crushed before they can even comprehend how disappointing life is, just got to me. You know that kid – in real life – isn’t going to get over it real quick either. They’re going to remember the humiliation of losing for a long time and it’s going to affect whether or whether not they think they can “win” in the rest of their lives. They are going to focus on their failures instead of their successes. They are going to find solace in alcohol and maybe even drugs. And then they’ll start doing stand-up comedy.

That’s why I cried during Spelling Bee.

And just for the record, I've never been in a Spelling Bee.