melissa, master of puzzles!

so no funny grocery stories, sadly. i was in and out of there so quickly no one had the chance to let me catch them doing something dumb. i know, i know. i'm disappointed too.

i have, however, started a new saturday tradition that i'd like to share with you: the saturday star crosswords. i'm so excited about it you'd think that i am the first one ever to discover it. i keep running around the office and trying to share my joy but everyone always replies with some variation of "yeah, i do it every week. the saturday one is the most fun!" i start blocking most people out after they say this because invariably they go on to say how fast they can do it, how accurate they are etc. i am neither fast nor accurate, so their information bores me. (and by bore i mean makes me mad because i always have to be the best at stuff. obviously.)

anyways, so i set myself up this afternoon to begin my ritual (it's a ritual after 2 weekends straight, right?): pen, table tray, vitamin water, plus the crossword. (and the crossword solution! you know, just in case...) it takes me about 20 minutes to fill in all the blanks i know off the top of my head. then i go back and see if i can figure out any additional answers since more letters have been filled in.

then things get a little, um, creative. i pull up the following webpages (in no particular order): google, dictionary.com, thesaurus.com, and wikipedia. i then proceed to google all the cryptic clues about famous baseball players from the 70s and random geography for cleveland that i absolutely have no clue about. (and don't even pretend you do either, coworkers! NO ONE knows who bert lyleven is. i'm sure of it.) you'd think that things would speed up here, but at this point i'm really only half way through... by the end of it, my head is throbbing, my back hurts from all the thinking (also why i never did any homework i didn't HAVE to do?), and my hands are black as tar.

despite all these obvious crossword-related illnesses, i've decided to stick this ritual out, if only for the bragging rights come monday morning when i can happily report to my coworkers what i've accomplished.

(and perhaps i'll also add in that i had no additional help and that it took me 30 minutes total to do both puzzles and that this is why the pay me the big bucks and aren't a smart little employee and perhaps a promotion is in my future and sure i'd love an office so that i can be even MORE productive than i already am and thanks for noticing).