By Stephen Lewis

Remember when you were in school and a teacher told you to define a vocabulary word in your own words? I always hated that because 1) I usually didn't know what the word meant in the first place, and 2) I didn't care enough to use my imagination to think of my own words.


I preferred the safety and reliability of the dictionary. After all, who can argue with Webster?


I also got very aggravated when I asked a teacher how to spell a word and she told me to look it up in the dictionary. Hello! Anyone home? If I could look it up in a dictionary I would already know how to spell it. Just tell me how to spell it and we can both move on.


Today teachers encourage inventive spelling where students spell the word by how it sounds to them. I wish that were around when I was in school. How eeze that wood haf ben!


Then I became a teacher and a parent and my life took a cruel, ironic twist. Webster defines irony as an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected. That's a pretty good definition but I think I can define it a little better in my own words and I'll try to not misspell anything.


Irony is…


When you were the class clown from elementary school through college, and then become a teacher and then the principal of a school.


When you called soccer a girly sport for 25 years, and then have a son who absolutely loves to play it.


When you have a son who reads every book placed in front of him and you have read a total of five books from beginning to end in your whole life. Three were sports-related and two were how to become a millionaire. (Writing a newspaper column for free wasn't mentioned in either of the two).


When your parents paid for you to make Cs, Ds, and the occasional F in college, and you demand your children get straight As and Bs so they can get a scholarship.


When you decry the state of today's music, and then download Fergie and Gwen Stefani on your Ipod. (Don't know Fergie or Gwen? Just ask any 12-year-old).


When you complain about your weight and poor family heart history and completely destroy the buffet at Chef Wang's.


When you complain about spoiled children, and then cut the crusts off your daughter's sandwiches.


When you spend an entire weekend loading up your junk to carry to Goodwill, and then stop by a couple of yard sales on your way home.


I certainly hope I've given you some insight into my definition of the word irony. Next week we will look into the definition of the word sarcasm in an article titled "How to be an obnoxious, narcissistic jerk and still be loved by all."


Stephen Lewis is an educator in the Rutherford County School System. A Murfreesboro resident since 1977, he graduated from Oakland High School and MTSU. His wife is an educator in the Murfreesboro City System, and they have three children, Aaron, John and Caroline.