'R' Is for 'R-rated'

Since 2011, the members of PB&J (Party, Benefit & Jam) have been raising money and awareness for area non-profits—in non-traditional ways. They’ve organized a pop-up party under the Fuller Warren Bridge for Sustainable Springfield and Riverside Avondale Preservation, a county fair at Intuition Aleworks for Forsaken Generation and Go Skate Day at Hemming Plaza for Kona Middle/High School. But it’s the group’s latest event — PB&J Presents: A Dirty Spelling Bee — that truly epitomizes its members’ desire to “think outside the box.”

Modeled after the Scripps National Spelling Bee, this 21-and-up-only version will have participants spelling actual medical terms, not slang, with The New Oxford American Dictionary serving as the official source of words and the final authority on spelling not urbandictionary.com. In other words, don’t expect any references to an oxidized brass instrument or men’s neckwear named after a city in Ohio. P.S. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, just keep reading: You’re better off that way.

Up to 30 contestants are expected to participate in the “oral competition” (hey, that’s what Scripps calls theirs!) with contestants ranging from a business owner and hair stylist to theater director and teacher. As a contestant, I can only hope there won’t be any gynecologists or urologists on the stage.

That’s not to say I haven’t been, er, boning up on my anatomy and physiology vocabulary. Sure, there are some folks who think I may have an advantage considering I’m a writer and should know how to spell, but I can assure you that “uterine infundibulum” and “corpa cavernosa” are not words I have ever typed until this very moment. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know I had a mons veneris, let alone how to spell it. The one small asset I do bring to the competition is my obsession with TLC’s My Strange Addiction. Translation: I will not misspell “plushophilia,” “objectum sexuality” or “looner.”

The PB&J Dirty Spelling Bee comes to a head (there’s just one more double entendre, I promise) March 23 at Burro Bar, 100 E. Adams St., just five blocks south of Beaver (and there you have it).

Entry fee for contestants is $20. Admission for spectators/voyeurs ranges from 69 cents to $8.69 and $1 of every drink sold will be donated to PB&J.