ADHD – D as in Deked
This nonsense resulted from nine missed words in the November 10, 2024, NYT Spelling Bee puzzle. All nine words are included, in bold type. The missed words, in alphabetical order, are as follows: alack, cackle, cackled, deckle, deke, deked, haka, hake, and leak.
“Cackle, cackle.”
Emily’s mother peeked her head around the door to her teenage daughter’s room. “What’re you laughing about, Em?”
“Oh, just a study I was reading about ADHD for a school paper.”
“Glad it’s amusing to someone,” her mother said in a beleaguered tone as she moved on down the hall, carrying a towering stack of clean, folded tee shirts with bundled sock pairs on top. Shame. Her mother could throw and Emily could catch. “Killjoy,” she muttered to herself.
Emily needed to get cracking on her school paper, and yet, she began to wonder whether that deckle she put together from old picture frames would work for making recycled paper. Then she started looking on OfferUp for a used blender to make the paper slurry. “Alack! Methinks I forgot my tea in the microwave,” she remarked with great drama to no one’s notice as she headed to the kitchen. When did procrastination morph into ADHD, she wondered. If her brother had it, she could have it too. She’d read that it’s genetic.
Five minutes later, Emily was finally back in her seat where she had started, again researching the subject of ADHD, otherwise spelled BOYS. The three primary symptoms fit her younger brother like Kendall Jenner in pantyhose. Not that Ronnie wore pantyhose because he didn’t, as far as Emily knew. They took too long to get on. And pantyhose were mostly black nowadays and Ronnie didn’t like to wear black. Anyway, back to the three signs of boyhood. The first was inattention – difficulty listening to others, a short attention span. She read on this one woman’s blog that her husband’s attention span was shorter than his dick. The woman sounded mad. But Emily knew she couldn’t cite that in her paper. She thought Ms. Archer might laugh, but still. Second, lacking in impulsivity control – often interrupts others. Especially to talk about himself or something as boring as German military helmets, Emily thought. And third, hyperactivity – constantly moving and never going anywhere.
Let’s head back to Boy Wonder’s room and do a little fact-checking research. Emily walked down the hall. “Hey, Bro’, I was working on this – “
“Emily! Cool! Look at this animated short I’m making!” Ronnie enthused as he hopped up from his chair over to his aquarium to pick up some fish food, read the label, and set the food back down, except he put it on the window ledge (where he found a pack of chewing gum) instead of on the post-it that reads in all caps: PUT FISH FOOD HERE. He never did feed Mr. Flippers.
“The animated short?” Emily prodded.
“It’s about hake,” answered Ronnie.
“Is he some friend –” Emily tried to ask.
“No, hake are fish like cod or haddock that live in the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Emily, I have to take a leak but stay right there so you can see the short. You’ll love it.”
During Ronnie’s break, Emily cackled some more. Inattention? Check. Always interrupting? Check. Constant commotion? Check. And there she was with smug on her face when Ronnie rushed back to his screen and pressed a button. She watched in amazed confusion as 17 sneering fish with elongated tongues swished their tails in an angry synchronized-swimming maneuver. Perplexed, Emily tried to ask, admittedly in a derisive tone, “Is this like a Baby Shark – ?”
“It’s a haka, that’s obvious, the traditional Maori dance the All Blacks do before a match in New Zealand. Because hake live in the ocean near New Zealand so if you could train them to dance, they’d do the haka. Hake. Haka. Get it?” Ronnie took a breath to bounce over to his nightstand for the Rubik’s Cube and a hoodie.
Emily tried to ask, “Why are there – ?”
“The 17 hake represent the 13 players and four alternates on a rugby team. The All Blacks are a rugby team,” Ronnie interrupted with the answer to her question.
“Was this a school – ?”
“I’m supposed to do a project on an Olympic sport,” he explained as he sat back down in his chair and then adjusted the height. Three times.
Ronnie began to arm the hake with menacing fishhooks and then stopped abruptly. “How’s it going with you? Are you working on anything fun?” He looked up at his older sister, waiting quietly for her reply.
Wait, was this some sort of trick, some hockey fake-out, a Kucherov deke move? “Not much,” said Emily warily as she headed back to her room. Settled in her chair, trying to focus on her school paper, she watched an instant replay of the encounter in her head. Absolutely, she’d been deked!
Meanwhile, two doors down the hall, Ronnie stood in the middle of his room, grinning just like a boy, as he juggled with three small bundles of clean gym socks.
