another spelling bee story

I lost the National Spelling Bee, which puts me in rather distinguished company among America's nerd elite. The year I lost, the girl who won appeared the next day on Good Morning America as I watched in my hotel room. She seemed self-satisfied, smarmy, with an of-course-I-deserved-to-win-it smile. For five minutes, I hated her more than I ever hated anyone in my short life.

But time hides scars, and I soon forgot about her.

Until years later.

Yes, years later, I'm randomly watching Jeopardy, and there she is in the final round, and she's in the lead, and she wins it, and she still has that exact same demeanor, smiling into the camera like it's her lover and confidante, unable to even fake modesty or surprise, and the hate rises in me like acid reflux and I turn to my family and say That's her, that's the one again, again!

The bitterness has long passed. I have seen her name in print on occasion, and she is by all accounts a decent human being. Perhaps her confidence became smugness only in my jealous imagination, her sweetness turned saccharine by resentment. Such is the power of adolescent envy.