D is for Dictionary

"MISS!" bellowed the student sitting next to the shelf with forty, neatly-stacked, never-been-touched dictionaries. "How do you spell (insert a word I probably could spell but maybe not)?"

"D-I-C-T-I-O-N-A-R-Y," I respond.

"Wait, ________ doesn't start with a 'D', Miss. What are you spelling?"

"D-I-C-T-I-O-N-A-R-Y."

Student number two, who isn't impressed with my joke helps his peer, "She is spelling dictionary. She wants you to look it up."

"Miss, you're silly! I'll just use my phone to look it up," student one said.

I can't blame them. I cannot spell because I grew up in the birth of spell check and auto correct. When I graduated from high school, the high-stakes test said that my spelling was on par with a 7th grader. I am intelligent. Heck, I am one of the most educated people I know, and I read constantly. I cannot, however, remember if appreciate gets one P or two and apologize was misspelled in this blog before I hit spellcheck.

Growing up, a paper and ink dictionary was not where I went to check spelling. It was the prop in a self-created game I liked to play. I would thumb through the pages, stop on a page, and pick a word. I'd practice that word (i.e. deliquesce, a verb meaning to become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air; example: You can't help but deliquesce into a puddle from the heat and humidity in Texas during the summer.). Then I would impress others with my advanced vocabulary. Too bad I couldn't remember the spelling of my fancy-pants word of the day.

What is your "fake-it-till-you-make-it" talent?