Good morning, and Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. I hope your day manages to stand out as special despite all the sameness we keep experiencing on a daily basis.
So last week, I got on a video conference as I now do multiple times a day. When the other party joined, the first thing he said was, “Hey, nice quarantine beard!” Normally I’d say that I have further proof that my beard is making me look noticeably different, but here’s the thing: I’d never met this guy before. He has no idea what I looked like a month or two ago but my face still screamed “quarantine beard” enough that led with it. Maybe it’s more like, “There’s no way he’d normally go around looking like that.” Either way, a risk on his part since he had literally no data to go off, but he was right.
That’s not why I’m here today though. I feel like I’ve definitely shared this story in writing somewhere but can’t find it on this blog, so I guess I haven’t since I only write things here. As probably everyone reading this knows, I’m a big fan of crossword puzzles. It’s in my blood from my mother, and I get a lot of joy from correctly filing in those boxes. I have the New York Times puzzle app on my phone and do them all the time and love it. Back when things were normal, I would travel every two months or so to visit another site for work. As soon as I’d sit on the plane, I’d pull out the in-flight magazine and try to complete the puzzle before the wheels were off the ground, and I always succeeded. (In truth, most of that is because I’m on there the moment I’m allowed and everything takes so long with the announcements that I have a good amount of time). My coworkers have made fun of me for getting excited when our trip out there is at the end of one month and the trip back is in another since that means we’ll have a new magazine and puzzle, but they can go fuck themselves.
In any case, a few years back I flew up to the Bay Area for my cousin’s bar mitzvah. It’s a quick flight, and I decided I would go there and back on the same day. I’ve done that with one-day conferences to Las Vegas before and it’s not bad at all when the flights are so short. I wore a suit and brought a pen in my inside jacket pocket so I could do the puzzle, which I did before we took off. (And it felt great as always to fill in that last box. Ahhh.)
That afternoon, I got on the plane again and saw the same magazine issue as before. I had a funny (to me) thought: “What if I nonchalantly do this puzzle again in record time and make people around me think I’m some sort of genius?” I saw no downside. I took it out, flipped to the page, pretended to consider it for a few seconds, then took out my pen and went to work. I paused and looked up a couple of times (a la Doogie Howser – my brother knows what I’m talking about at least), but went pretty much non-stop through it all. Then when I was done, I looked it over and nodded as if to say, “Yep, I just did that without really trying and I guess my work is done here,” then put it back in the seat pocket in front of me. I had no idea if anyone was watching – and why would they? – but I chuckled to myself over my ridiculous behavior.
We took off, and I sat back and listened to a podcast or music for a few minutes before something very unexpected happened: a tap. Not just any tap – a tap with a newspaper. I was in the aisle seat on the left side of the plane, and I turned back to see the woman in the right aisle seat one row back offering me a newspaper section opened to the crossword puzzle. “Oh, thank you!” I said aloud as I took it from her. But inside I was thinking some combination of shits and fucks. She’d seen my stupid act, bought it, and was now asking the puzzle genius to perform on command. Shits and fucks, my friends.
I quickly sized up my options. I could make a show of putting it in my bag, saying thank you again, and then closing my eyes and pretending to sleep for the rest of the short flight. I could try doing the puzzle but know that it would be slower than the first and I might disappoint my only fan. Or I could double down and do it super quickly…with random letters in the boxes and a satisfied nod at the end. That last one seemed too risky…and possibly a tad insane. So I went with option two and started doing the puzzle.
I was making progress, but I also purposely checked my phone a few times and changed what I was listening to as a way of showing that I wasn’t 100% focused on the puzzle. I have no idea if she was watching any of this of course since she was behind me, but she watched me complete the puzzle before, so it was possible. Thankfully I was able to complete the puzzle and it wasn’t one of those super hard ones with all 9-letter clues with proper noun answers I’ve never heard of. It wasn’t lightning quick and may have let my fan down, but I lifted it a little when I was done, nodded at it, and then went back to my music while my heart rate went back to normal. At the end of the flight, I thanked her again and prayed she wasn’t going to ask me any questions or hand me another puzzle. She didn’t, so prayer obviously works.
That’s my story. I did something kinda stupid for no reason, got caught, and had to try replicating it on the spot. I lived through it and did such a poor job learning my lesson that I’ve done the same thing coming back from work trips when I return in the same month. I don’t know why, but I haven’t been handed any other puzzles from strangers. Oh I know why – because something’s wrong with me. But there may also be a dozen people out there who have left a plane, called a friend or family member while walking to the baggage claim, and said something like, “Yeah, flight was good. And I sat near a crossword puzzle genius.” Shut up, it could happen.