14 years and 964 Crosswords later

-- Do not click unless you're a crossword connoisseur

Interviewer: "What is your proudest accomplishment?"

Spencer: (brandishes a perfectly folded paper from his wallet)

Interviewer: (consults paper) " Uhhh, I meant, your greatest professional accomplishment."

Spencer: "I understood the question."

--

It's true. I've completed the first crossword puzzle of my life. My batting average on crossword puzzles is now 1 for 964, or a robust 0.001. (Hall of Fame here I come) Brooke Deem introduced me to the joys of crosswording in the fall of 2007, which means it's taken me 14 years to put a 100% stamp on the best part of the New York Times. What a journey. I'm overjoyed. Is this what it feels like to score a hole-in-one? 

That fall we hit it off -- me and Brooke, yes, but me and crosswords too. I shouldn't have been surprised. The term crossword has the words "orcs sword" hiding in it and I love Lord of the Rings so naturally the puzzles grabbed my heart as well. I would pick up multiple crosswords a day, celebrating when I'd get 10 or more answers, cursing when Brooke would outperform me in triplicate. I remember the two of us walking up to Old Main on a winter night, braving the hill and the chill, scavenging the empty newspaper bins hoping for the challenge of just one more puzzle. Was I 86-years old when I attended college, you may wonder? It's a fair question. 

I wasn't clever at solving puzzles but I was clever at concealing them. Here's a tip for any current or future college students. Grab a newspaper on the way to class. You rip out the puzzle. You slide the puzzle into your notebook. While your professor is boring you to death, open your notebook and work on the puzzle. Bammo, you get entertainment, and your professor thinks your a studious notetaker. 

What's that you say? 

Newspapers are no longer printed?

Students don't use notebooks? 

STUDENTS DON'T USE PENS OR PENCILS!?!

Oh yeah. I forgot it's been a century since I went to school. 

Oh well. Old or young, my crossword enthusiasm will not dim. I need to brag about this accomplishment, but who do you share something like this with? Your mom? She doesn't care. Your wife? She won't want to hear about a tradition that started with girlfriends past. Your kids? They don't know what crosswords are. Your friends? They'll think your a nerd. The teachers quorum? Lol they wouldn't listen even if Blake Lively was talking to them about boobs. Twitter? No, that's only for sports and Trump (RIP). Cougarboard? Doing a crossword would probably elevate my standing on that site, but I recently got moderated over there so I'm a little gunshy about posting. 

So there remained only one option. To my readers, feel free to lavish praise upon the comments section. Change your profile picture to my completed puzzle if you must. Buy a hardcopy of the Times in my honor. 

And if in a bizarre turn of events you think I should feel dumb about taking so much pride in having completed one solitary crossword puzzle in a 14-year span, well the joke is on you. The only thing more embarrassing than writing about a finished crossword puzzle is reading about one.