Lenawee Smiles: Exchanging cross words with crosswords

There are self-inflicted rules I set before tackling crossword puzzles. I have to use a ballpoint pen. I can only look at the answer after 18 straight hours of attempts at the correct answer.

The atmosphere is crucial. A padded cell is probably what I need.

I like the “Herald Tribune Crossword Puzzle Book.” It fits into my purse if I think I might have to sit for more than an hour somewhere.

I recently was gloating to myself — no one else cares — I had completed two double-paged puzzles without corrections or looking at the answers and in ink. I was on that mystical

roll. There was no stopping me.

You should never ever say that. As soon as those words leave your tongue, failure is chuckling as it saunters through the door. The next page had faint curls of smoke coming from the edges of it. Did I heed this warning of a possible downfall lurking on my immediate horizon? Of course not. I do not consider myself equal to solving the puzzles in the New York Times. Will Shortz devises not only those but has a Sunday morning segment on NPR, unleashing complicated verbal puzzles to draw in contestants throughout the land.

“Take the first three vowels and the middle two of the 17-letter name of a four-legged reptile found in the Amazon rain forest, alternate them with the eight consonants found in the name of an Algerian starchy vegetable coupled with a Nova Scotian amphibian, now extinct, to come up with the ancestral name of an Italian composer popular in the Middle Ages.”

Believe it or not, some 1,938 people will solve this during the week.

Not me. He lost me at “Take…”

I know my limitations and should have been content with those two completed puzzles.

I should have carefully cut them out and taken them to a frame shop, spending coin of the realm to have them preserved under museum glass.

Grabbing my favorite fine point blue pen, I set to conquer the next puzzle.

It was deceptive or, perhaps, I am easily deceived. “Messier,” read #1 Across. I snickered and immediately penned in “DIRTIER.”

One Down: ”Agree.” The answer was “CONFORM” which did not agree with “DIRTIER.” I was in trouble and had not left the first “cross.”

My next idea was to sort of skip around and find some clues that I could answer correctly. “Noxious exhalations.” I started to write “BADBREATH” then found there were not enough spaces. Great, I had already printed “BADBR…”

I moved to a different part of the page. “End of story.” Aha! “EPILOG.” The corresponding words fit with those letters. I wiped the dew from my brow. (Men wipe the sweat from their foreheads, women do not.)

Trick clue: “German river.” These always puzzle me. Is the clue asking for the German word for “river” or the name of a German river? I skipped that one.

“Thaumatagricmatric” Is that a real word? From what country? The name of some sixth century Norse rebel? An obscure science taught only in odd-numbered years at schools with five or fewer pupils?

Next impossible clue. “Kaebochutttarial night dweller on the Georgian plain.”

Next impossible clue. “Immature newts.” I guessed and wrote in “EFTS.”

Next. “Residual matter of sac contents in a Siberian wood.” A sense of nausea struck. I moved on.

Who wrote this puzzle anyway?

Next. “The smallest of three planets currently in danger of being consumed by Delta 293 black hole.”

This puzzle continued to block my efforts of solving it.

“Mozart’s first name.” Yes! I quickly penned in “Amadeus” before moving on… No!

Not Amadeus. There was a blank spot. I knew better. I wrote “Wolfgang” over “Amadeus.”

I had to slow down and stop making mistakes. I set the book aside and decided to

have lunch.

Within seven minutes, I inhaled a sandwich, an apple, a glass of milk and four Tums. I grabbed the now grubby book and started searching for clues. One method that helps is to find all the plurals and fill in the “esses.” Search out the past tenses and put in the “eds.”

Doing this didn’t help me with this clue: “Kurchiturianchee and Nerbatcchetaranian.”

I checked the cover to make sure I had not picked up a bilingual puzzle. I slogged on, did the best I could and down toward the end of the page had managed to complete one section.

It looked pretty good until somehow a certain set of “Acrosses” and “Downs” ended up declaring that Abraham Lincoln’s mother’s middle name was El Ranchero.

Susan Keezer lives in Adrian. Send your good news to her at lenaweesmiles@gmail.com. 

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Susan Keezer: Exchanging cross words with crosswords