The Spelling Bee Drinking Game

We at Where We Watch are always looking for new sports to watch. And as self-proclaimed former nerds, we are also always looking for ways to integrate drinking into pursuits of higher education. (Honestly, who hasn’t used a six-pack to make writing that sociology/film studies/english paper that much easier. We rest our case.) When we first came across the Scripps National Spelling Bee, we knew we had stumbled upon the perfect union of these two pursuits. Many people say that its not a sport; however, those people need only watch the following clip to know that spelling can be hazardous to your health:

In the spirit of the 82nd Scripps Bee, the www team is sharing our tried and tested drinking rules for those of you adventurous enough to play at home::

You drink once whenever one of these occur:

• The speller is of Indian descent
• The speller is a girl 
• The speller has glasses
• The speller is a jock

If more than one of those occur, you drink multiple times.

If the speller misspells a word you drink to the numeric equivalent of the letter that the person misspelled with (ie. if the word is cat and they say kat, the letter is k and the numeric equivalent is 11. And I fear for the quality of education in their school district. Who spells cat wrong?)

And lastly, everyone competing picks a speller at the beginning of the finals. Whoever’s speller does the best wins. Everyone else drinks a shot to celebrate. (If you have a morning meeting the next day, we’d advise you skip this. Many evening have gone astray at this point)

Win or lose, there is a strong chance you’ll be passed out on the couch or hugging the toilet by the time the trophy is awarded. I say this from experience - a few years back, I hugged someone else’s toilet. That was awkward. In any event, if we learned anything in elementary school gym, its that we’re all winners. Even when we’re losers. Happy spelling.