My Crossword Catastrophe
Alright, so today I figured I’d relax a bit, grab the newspaper, and tackle the crossword puzzle. Usually enjoy doing these, you know, keeps the mind sharp. Or so I thought.
I sat down, got my coffee, felt ready. Started off pretty well, actually. The top corner filled up nicely. A few across clues, a couple down. Yeah, feeling pretty good about myself at this point. Thinking, “Nailed it.”
Then I hit a wall. There was this one clue, something like “Old-timey writing tool, four letters”. My brain just stopped. I stared at it. Pen? No, three letters. Quill? Five letters. What the heck? I sort of guessed, jammed in “STYL” – like stylus, right? Seemed okay at the time.
That was mistake number one.
Because “STYL” went in, the ‘T’ needed to work for a down clue. And the ‘L’ for another across one. Suddenly, the clues around it made zero sense. “A type of fish, three letters, ending in L”? Eel? Okay, maybe that worked. But the ‘T’ clue? “Opposite of fast, four letters”? STOW? SLOW? My ‘T’ didn’t fit! Argh.
So I started erasing. And if you’ve ever tried to erase cheap newsprint ink… well, you know. It smudged. Badly. The ‘T’ became a gray blob. I tried writing “SLOW” over it, but now the ‘L’ from “STYL” was definitely wrong for that other across clue.
It just snowballed from there.
- Tried fixing the fish clue.
- Tried figuring out the “opposite of fast” again.
- Went back to the “writing tool” clue, completely stumped.
My confident start completely evaporated. The whole middle section of the puzzle turned into this mess of smudged ink, eraser dust, and letters written over other letters. It looked like a dog had chewed on it.
In the end, I just stared at the disaster I’d created. It wasn’t even fun anymore. Just frustrating. All because I forced that one stupid answer, “STYL”, early on without being sure. It wrecked everything around it.
So yeah, I totally messed up on the crossword today. Didn’t finish it. Left it looking like modern art, maybe. Note to self: don’t guess so confidently next time. Or maybe just stick to the Sudoku. Less chance of a cascading failure, right?
