Memo to: My Increasingly Annoying Employee, Z
Re: Daily crossword puzzle
Please keep your mitts offa my daily crossword puzzle.
Now, being the generous and compassionate coffee mistress that I am, I allow you to drink 5 shots of espresso over ice with a shot of vanilla and whipped cream probably 3 times a day because you were once a neglected foster child and are now pretty much broke and starving and ride a bike to work because you can’t afford the bus fare and so you come to work all exhausted and I insist you drink some orange juice and a bunch of other ill-advised niceness like this, BUT I kick compassion to the curb when it comes to my daily crossword puzzle.
You simply must stay away, dearie.
Look, Z. I can’t even see straight anymore and I’ve fallen off the espresso platform twice this week from temporary blindness or exhaustion or something and one of my absolute least favorite customers from the Beanhouse has found me at Boheme and begun spreading her very special brand of Bronx-broad magic, but this crossword puzzle thing is gonna push me over the edge here. It’s bad enough you start in with your pen whenever I’m not around, never asking first, but what’s worse, dearie, what kills me — and my puzzle — is this harsh truth: You lack some very basic puzzling skills.
Witness these recent debacles:
Clue: forest clearing
Correct Answer: GLADE
You Put (in ink): MEDOW
*********
Clue: another word for dogs
Correct Answer: CANINES
You Put (again, in ink): OLD PALS
Dude, you put “OLD PALS.”
**********
Oh, here’s another Clue: some employees
You Put: GREAT
Correct Answer (ahem): FIRED!
Oh, Tracey –
You must put out a decoy cryptic crossword, ASAP.
That’ll learn him.
Or not.
hahahahahaha!
OLD PALS?
I am seriously guffawing over here.
Z needs to put the pen down NOW.
Actually, Sal, I’ve thought of just buying a big book of crosswords that I’d leave lying around the place. He’ll work on them, of course — he can’t help it — and I will scan his attempts onto this blog. Which is horrible of me, but “OLD PALS”??? How can I pass this up?
Okay. Someone talk me out of this — RIGHT NOW. This is my baser self speaking. Ready … talk me out of it …. GO:
Actually, I was going to suggest just such a thing.
Not so much scanning his entries in, but rather leaving crosswords around for him to do so that YOUR crossword is left pristine.
Kind of like farmers who plant “capture crops” of some kind of cheap stuff that the rabbits and deer will eat to draw them away from the real garden.
I cannot stop laughing at “old pals.” You gotta give the guy some credit for creativity, though. And for having a soft spot for the canines.
“OLD PALS”? In pen??? Oh, dear. . .
My crossword-addict mom will get a kick out of this.
MEDOW.
My goodness, that’s saddening.
Um, that makes me baser than you, then.
I wanted to see his head explode, from trying to figure out the cryptic clues.
And it’s Holy Week, too. Shame on me.
Put down the pen, step away from the crossword, and nobody gets hurt.
I have a good friend who occasionally comes over on Sunday afternoon, and he does my NYT crossword, in ink, in about 45 minutes or so. I have seen him once or twice make a mistake and have to write over it.
But not usually.
Count your blessings, dearie! 😉
I can only do People Magazine crossword puzzles, but at least I would know THAT.
Geesh.
I will look over shoulders, I will suggest answers, but I never “do” someone else’s crossword puzzle!
That employee needs to be smacked on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper!
Stupidity + high self asteem, the toughest freaking personality trait.