May I buy a vowel?

“Hey,” I uttered.

 

Sitting with me at the kitchen counter, my lovely wife, Grace, looked up from the newspaper she was reading. Aunt Toogie set down the cell phone she had been intently studying. 

 

Grace says I tend to pause when speaking. So when I didn’t immediately continue my proclamation, she inquired, “Is there more?”

 

“Yes,” I stammered a tad. “As I was in the process of saying…”

 

“Spit it out, Dalton!” Toogie barked. “I’m in the middle of solving this word game and you broke my concentration.”

 

“Want me to look at it?” I offered, reaching for her phone which she quickly pulled away.

 

“I’m pretty good at coming up with letter patterns,” I boasted.

 

“Really?” Grace smiled. When I looked puzzled, she continued, “Well for one, you are not a very good speller, dear.”

 

“Am, too!” I shot back with a little playground bravado.

 

“Dalton,” she chuckled. “Think of how many times you ask Alexa how to spell a word when you are doing your columns for The Daniel Island News.”

 

“He does it all the time,” Toogie chortled, “and he has spellcheck on his computer, too.”

 

We all three stared at each other for a moment until Grace broke the silence with a polite, “Take us back to whatever it was you wanted to share after you said ‘hey’ a minute or so ago.”

 

“Oh, that,” I answered. “Did you see that Ryan Seacrest is going to replace Pat Sajak on ‘Wheel of Fortune?’”

 

 “Pat Sajak has been doing that show for over 40 years,” Grace observed.

 

Toogie added, “I’ve always enjoyed it.”

 

“So did Dustin Hoffman,” I interjected. When Grace and Toogie gave me quizzical looks, I added, “You know, in ‘Rain Man.’”

 

When the quizzical looks didn’t dissipate, I remarked, “I could emcee that show.”

 

“Better than Pat Sajak?” Toogie scoffed. “No way.”

 

“Plus, you are not a good speller. We just covered that,” Grace piled on.

 

Now feeling a need to defend my proposition, I replied, “You don’t have to be a good speller to host that show.”

 

“Are you saying Pat Sajak isn’t a good speller?” Grace challenged.

 

“No,” I replied. “I’m just pretty sure he has people who cue him when a contestant’s guess is right or wrong.”

 

“But it would help, wouldn’t it?” Grace bore in like a congressional hearing, “if the host of the show were a good speller?”

 

“Well, maybe,” I conceded.

 

“Good,” Grace replied quickly. Reaching a hand toward Toogie, she asked, “May I borrow your phone?” Toogie complied.

 

“Now, Toogie is playing this game called Wordle,” Grace stated. “Look here,” she continued, moving into her English teacher mode. Setting the phone in front of me, she began the instruction. “Toogie is trying to guess a word that has five letters. She knows the first one is an L, the second one is an A, and the word also has an E. The E is not in the fourth spot, where she has it now. See the color of the E? It indicates the E is in the word but not in that spot. So, what do you think the word may be?”

 

I stared at the phone screen. Letters and words tumbled through my head but nothing seemed to fit. Finally, Grace interjected, “Let’s start with this. Do you think the E is the third or last letter?”

 

“Could be either,” I muttered after perusing the puzzle a bit.

 

“But there is a more likely place for the E to go,” Grace instructed. “There may be words that start L-A-E, but there are many more that start L-A and then end in E. Can you think of one?”

 

I nodded and thought. 

 

“How about L-A-M-M-E?” I offered.

 

“And what is that?” she quizzed.

 

“A kind of fabric? Like that shiny blouse you have.”

 

“That is spelled L-A-M-E,” the teacher corrected, “with an acute accent mark above the E.”

 

When I didn’t come up with another suggestion, Grace coached, “Think big. Big.”

 

Finally, it hit me. I hollered, “Latte! Like a venti latte.”

 

Grace sighed as her head dropped. After a pause, she offered, “The word was large. But I’ll grant you, latte does fit.”

 

“Nice try, Pat,” Toogie chuckled, taking her phone back. “I’d say you just landed on bankrupt.”

 

“Latte worked,” I retorted smugly.

 

Toogie stuck out her tongue.

 

That evening I offered to make cocktails before dinner. Grace recently discovered a drink, classic French 75. Very refreshing on a hot day. I asked Toogie, “You want what Grace is having or want to join me in a Manhattan?”

 

“How about a contest to decide what we drink,” Toogie suggested.

 

“Game on,” I shot back, always up for a challenge.

 

“Well,” Toogie grinned, “I was thinking about your claim to be a good speller and thought we could have some fun with it.” She continued, “Each night before dinner, I’ll give you a word to spell. If you get it right, I will forego my drink that evening. But if you are wrong, you get no drink.”

 

I looked toward Grace who raised her eyebrows and displayed a tiny smile, nodding her head ever so slightly. This was, indeed, a challenge. But not wanting to back down, I lifted my chin and declared, “Fire away.”

 

Well, I now know that bizarre has just one Z and two Rs. Sounds like it should have two Zs, but it doesn’t. I double checked it in our Oxford English Dictionary while Grace and Toogie enjoyed their classic French 75 as I sipped Charleston’s finest tap water. But it didn’t end there.

 

The next day was sergeant. Really? I would have bet the farm that second letter was an A. And the following night was colonel. No R? Get out of here. And on the fourth (or is it forth?) day, liaison. Yep, no E in that one. Ugh! I was zero for four!

 

My misspelling performances produced giggles from Grace and Toogie. By the fourth night the merriment progressed to guffaws and high fives. And seconds on their drinks. They sipped their champagne cocktails while I watched their little party and drowned my sorrows in good old H2O. Following the fourth night’s falter on liaison, I trudged off to my study to compose this account of my travails. Okay, maybe I’m not that great at spelling. But then Toogie was right about one thing. I don’t really have to be nowadays thanks to technology. I’ve got spellcheck on this computer. And for that, I am eternally grapefruit.