My Sentiments Exactly

The crossword has been an integral part of our marriage. We can’t remember when exactly we started doing crosswords together, though we do remember doing them when we lived in Searcy (AR), so it’s been at least since the beginning of our marriage. However, at some point the crossword began to come between us and we haven’t done one together in a year and thirteen days ... give or take.

We still occasionally get each other crossword books for Christmas. They make a great stocking stuffer. Especially the one I found this year; a book called “Sit & Solve Crosswords,” which is in the shape of a toilet. You can guess where the author imagined you’d be sitting as you solved these puzzles. The introduction of this little book caught my attention:

Solving crosswords is, at heart, a private activity. Sometimes two people will solve a crossword together, but there is always negotiation involved: How to hold the clues so both solvers can read them. Who gets to hold the pencil. That sort of thing. It’s like sharing a sandwich without cutting it in half first–it can be done, but the people doing it had better like each other a lot.

So, given the essential solitary nature of crosswords, it only makes sense to combine solving them with ... another private activity. That’s where this book comes in. Why spend your time staring at a tile floor when you could be staring at a crossword grid? (Francis Heaney)

My sentiments exactly. I’m a multitasker in every way.

I truly thought the challenges Dan & I encountered while doing crossword puzzles were unique. I don’t know of anyone else who solves puzzles with another person. So I’ve never discussed with someone else the problems that can arise when you attempt to do it. (Have you ever tried it?) I was amazed when I read this introduction because it was like she’d been in our home watching us try to do puzzles together! Unless we were doing a puzzle when Dan was in the bath (I know, something you didn’t really want to know) in which case I’d obviously be holding the book & doing the writing and Dan wouldn’t even care if he couldn’t see the clues, there was always competition about whose turn it was to write the answers and therefore who’d get to hold the book.

Another challenge we’d encounter were the “rules.” Dan likes to do a crossword straight through the Across clues, then the Down clues; then, and only then, you can jump around from Across to Down and back. I, however, like to do an Across clue, then do the Down clues that will use the letters I just filled in. OR, if I’m stuck on an Across clue, I’d like to look at the Down clues to see if that will help me solve the Across clue I’m stuck on. Dan acts as if I’m cheating to use Down clues to help with the Across. I maintain, however, that a crossword can be done however the solver wants to do it; the only form of cheating is looking in the back of the book for the answers.

But that just goes back to Francis Heaney’s introduction. Doing crosswords truly is a private affair, best left to an individual. It doesn’t necessarily have to be relegated to the bathroom, but maybe trying to do it with a partner is expecting too much.

After all, you wouldn’t want a silly little crossword puzzle to come between you and a loved one.

(By the way, if you left a comment on my last post, be sure & check out the comments section again because I actually remembered to respond to each of you. God bless!)