I'm a bit late to the party but I finally have time to write out my story :P

6th grade, our school decided to participate in the Scripps national spelling bee. So the way this works is each English class has a contest, go around the room spelling and when you mess up sit down. Last person standing goes on to the school wide contest, then region, state, nation. But of course if the winner from an English class doesn't show up, the second place takes over, etc.

When I heard about this I was super pumped. 6th-grade me was really proud of being a fantastic speller (wtf man)! So on the day of, I demolished, dropping word after word, until there were three of us left. My word: futon.

Now for whatever reason, by 6th grade I had never heard the word futon. Had no idea what it meant, or how it was spelled. But I figured there was no reason it would be on the list if it was just spelled phonetically. So: "Futon. P-h-u-t-o-n. Futon." Ding. fuck

I came in third, and never went to the school wide competition. But for a while I was pissed off about the injustice, because later when I looked at the word list, I could spell every word but futon.

And it turns out, the day of the school wide contest, neither the first or second place from our class showed up. So technically, if I had thought to attend--just in case--I could've competed.

The next year I transferred to a private school that wasn't registered with Scripps. By the time they were, I was too old. That one and only spelling bee is one of my only regrets.