Connectiwhat?

In fourth grade, I took a test where I had to label every state on map of America. Not only that, but every state had to be spelled correctly, so this wasn't just a geography exam, it was a spelling test, too.

I studied a lot for that test, and when I handed it in, I was confident that I had scored 100%. But when it was handed back to us the next day, I discovered that I had gotten one wrong. Was it Missouri? That's a tough one, but no. How about Delaware? The vowels are confusing in that one, but nope, I got that one. How about Massachusetts? I studied forever to remember which letters were doubled and which were not, and managed to do that successfully, too.

It turns out that I got Connecticut - or as I believed it to be, "Conneticut" - wrong. I could spell 49 states, but to miss that one was tragic. I say that not because I'm a perfectionist, but because that was my own state - the one and only state I had ever lived in.

I guess I didn't even bother to study Connecticut, because I already knew it... or thought I did. Why does Connecticut need three Cs anyway? That's pretty excessive for a state full of moderates.

To this day, I live in fear that I will make that same mistake again, saying "CONNECT - I - CUT" aloud to myself whenever writing the state's name. It's just one of many complexes I developed while living there.