Mw True Hollywood Story

You can't make this stuff up. This story was on my mind so I figured I would be crazy and write two posts in one night. I promise this will be it for a while.

So on Monday nights I tutor an adult with illiteracy at the Washington Literacy Council. I love it. It's by far the most rewarding thing I do all week. It's one hour of my time and I always leave with a huge smile on my face. My student is great. To keep his identity private I will call him Lewis. We usually laugh at least once a session about something I do, but tonight the tables were turned.

Part of our lesson plan is to practice spelling. I rattle off a word and Lewis repeats the word then writes it down. We do this for about 10 words. I don't offer any assistance while he's writing them out. Once he's completed all 10 words I review them all and we go over what he misspelled. The dialogue goes something like this:

Mw: So the word I said was dust, and you wrote....dust, correct!
Lewis: dust D U S T
Mw: Ok, the next word I said was bent, and you wrote...bend. What do we need to change to make that sound like bent, Lewis?
Lewis: the t sound?
Mw: yes, the t, add the t to the end of the word.
(This is what our conversations are like every Monday night, if he's wrong, he will be off by a letter. The next one was off by a little bit more.)
Mw: So, the next word was trot, you know like a horse? And you wrote.......


T U R D

Mw: Long pause...scrunching my face....biting my lip.

Still nothing, just a long pause.

Cramping in stomach starts to make it impossible to breathe through nose and then I lose it.

I said the word TURD out loud in the middle of our session and EVERYONE heard me! I couldn't control the noise that escaped me but I have never laughed so hard.
Lewis: (He, too realized what I said and was laughing uncontrollably.) Oh, I don't think I spelled that one correctly.
Mw: Nope, no ya didn't. But at least you managed to get half of the learning center to laugh at me!

Now you just can't make that stuff up. I will never look at the word trot the same way again.


Work Hard-Play Harder-Laugh the Hardest