The Impotence Of Proper Spelling

I am sure you have had the necessity of proper spelling drummed into your head from a tender age. Teachers say it, parents preach it and your friends all compete at spelling in those ‘honerous’ contests called “spelling bees.”

Gonga has always wondered why they’re called spelling bees anyway. After all, proper spelling of the noun for those little insects which fly around gathering nectar to turn into honey is not all that difficult. No, it’s words a bit longer than that which trip Gonga up.

In response to one worried note from a teacher which attempted to convince Gonga that he should work harder at learning to spell properly, Gonga sent another note asserting that he agreed that proper spelling was impotent. The teacher took this to mean that Gonga thought her teaching style was impotent. From that point on, Gonga was on his own.

He later posted on a girl’s wall, telling her, “You are such a sweaty girl!” Not only did he accuse her of overactive sweat glands, he also happened to forget to insert the comma before “girl,” which is probably why she immediately sentenced him to a life-time of Facebook friendlessness. Less than a year after that he made the mistake of messaging another friend, stating that the deodorant he used was utterly senseless. He meant “scentless” of course, but that friend called him up and started cursing him out in the middle of class. Suffice to say that this time Gonga had the pleasure of de-friending the person and deleting all the vulgar things that had been posted on his wall in the interim.

More embarrassing, and also more damaging, he addressed a thank-you letter to the donor who had funded his scholarship that year to, “The Deer Fiend.” Apparently that individual did not appreciate being likened to some sort of four footed, cloven hoofed demon and promptly revoked any future funding to the school.

In general, Gonga forgets letters and often confuses the proper use of vowels. When he writes his mother that he is going to get ‘beat’, she has finally stopped worrying for his safety and realized that he is simply talking about vegetables. He will also occasionally write home, telling that that he accomplished a spectacular ‘feet’ in finding shoes large enough for his ‘feat’. This inevitably sends his parents into ‘contusions’ of laughter.