MARK MY WORD: THE ADVENTURE OF WORDS AND GRAND OPENINGS

Words are an adventure in third grade. They're the cat's "meow" and the "toot" of a horn.

Words like "boom," "baa," and "beep" also find their way into spelling tests.

Becca recently had such a test. She loved it.

Of course, our oldest daughter likes words anyway. But these words were fun for her. She giggled as she looked over a list of 20 "sound" words. They included everything from "click" to "clank" and "tweet" to "woof."

They sound like a Saturday morning cartoon.

You won't find any of these words in those stale government documents that bureaucrats write. Fun words aren't allowed in the serious business of bureaucracy.

That's too bad. We might all be better off as a nation if government employees spent more time quacking and mooing or at least saying so in their written correspondence.

None of these words made it into the latest grocery ads in town, but that didn't stop people from turning out for the opening last week of the newest grocery store in Cape Girardeau.

In this area, nothing compares to the opening of a supermarket, except perhaps an NCAA tourney appearance for the Southeast Missouri State University men's basketball team.

It's a major event, comparable to the grand opening of a new art museum in New York City. Only in Cape Girardeau, more people appreciate a good head of lettuce than a Picasso. I'll admit some of his paintings look like they belong in the vegetable aisle.

Naturally, our whole family had to make the trek to our area's newest supermarket.

For Becca and Bailey, it was a chance to try to see how many sweet treats they could toss into the basket as we tried to make our way through the mass of humanity.

The store only had been open for about 24 hours when we made our journey there. The parking lot was still full. Normally, you have to have a World Wrestling Federation event to draw this much attention in our area.

I didn't hear a single "baa" or "beep" in the supermarket aisles, although there were plenty of crowd noises. I'm sure I detected a "thump" or two from all those carts bumping in the aisles. Becca knows all about "thump." It was on her spelling test.

At events such as supermarket openings, it's best to wear a protective helmet and football pads so you can crash through the crowd and safely make it to the next aisle .

It was like one big block party. Every few feet, we stopped and talked to people we hadn't seen since the last major store opening.

Even people like us who regularly shop at a competing store couldn't resist the new-store syndrome.

But, hey, it's a cultural event. People can't help themselves. The same phenomenon occurred when the Show Me Center first opened.

The only difference is that apparently all the shoppers who descended on the supermarket were starving when they entered the store.

How else can you explain the massive buying frenzy?

We managed to fill a shopping cart with enough stuff to feed our entire neighborhood in the event of a blizzard.

Our children would have filled two or three shopping carts if we had let them.

Of course, they didn't want to linger in the vegetable aisle. But they discovered plenty of other food items to their liking, all conveniently located at the front of the store.

I'm sure Becca found plenty of food for thought even if none of it was on the spelling test.