I awoke to the reveille of my bedside alarm clock in a quandary. To snooze or not to snooze? The anticipated acesodyne effect of the medication taken to combat last evening’s bout with sinusitis and rhinorrhagia had not yet set in. I couldn’t have felt worse if a gyascutus was moving at a canter up and down my forehead!

In spite of my boeotian state, I had to get moving before panickiness overwhelmed me. My Realtor would be here momentarily to give her spiel to some prospective buyers and I still had to clean up after last night’s rijsttafel. What a feast that had been! Adding the tofu might have been a bit supererogatory, but when you’ve got a guest with serious triskaidekaphobia, you sometimes have to be creative to find that final ingredient!

His after-dinner entertainment more than compensated for the menu oddity, however. As we relaxed on the Biedermeier sofa and chairs in the living room, we were held in rapt attention by his delightful tenor voice. While the melody was both haunting and lovely, it was the lyric’s unusual incorporation of both illeism and onomatopoeia that was enough to mesmerize even the most eclectic music lover.

I had just put the last bowl into the dishwasher when I heard a knock at the door. After a year on the market, my hope of selling the house had begun to recede badly. My agent finally suggested eschewing netiquette and spamming everyone I knew. It worked. I got five separate responses, and these buyers seemed very serious. They had e-mailed asking questions about everything from my edible epixylous fungus to the chresard levels, so I knew they would appreciate the unique natural setting of the property. Maybe I would finally be able to pursue my dream of being the reader at the Scripps National Spelling Bee!

Words for Round 1 (written test) of the 2004 National Spelling Bee:

1. separate

2. tofu

3. canter (a 3-beat gait resembling but smoother and slower than the gallop)

4. panickiness

5. tenor

6. recede

7. quandary (a state of perplexity or doubt)

8. rapt (wholly absorbed)

9. netiquette (etiquette governing communication on the Internet)

10. Realtor

11. mesmerize (to subject to hypnotic appeal)

12. spiel (a voluble line of often extravagant talk : PITCH)

13. triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13)

14. supererogatory (exceeding what is needed : SUPERFLUOUS)

15. rhinorrhagia (nosebleed)

16. epixylous (growing on wood)

17. illeism (the practice of referring to oneself in the third person)

18. chresard (water present in the soil and available for plant absorption)

19. reveille (a signal to get up mornings)

20. acesodyne (adj :  mitigating or relieving pain)

21. Biedermeier (style of unostentatious furniture popular in early 19th century Germany)

22. onomatopoeia (the use of words whose sound suggests the sense: e.g., buzz, hiss)

23. gyascutus (imaginary beast with legs longer on one side, for walking on hillsides)

24. boeotian (from ancient Greek district noted for thick atmosphere and stupidity of inhabitants)

25. rijsttafel (Indonesian meal consisting of rice and a variety of accompanying dishes)