How Boredom May Lead to Pain:

A Look Inside the Dangerous World of Puzzles

I’m bored. So naturally I pick up the nearest newspaper and head straight to the Cue section. No, I don’t want to see what Zits is up to, but I want to do the puzzles. Okay, maybe I will see what’s happening to Jeremy on Zits, and then I’ll check out what my life has in store for me in the horoscopes, but then I will do the puzzled. I want to stimulate the mind. But sadly, I only end up with what feels like a giant machete wound to the brain. It’s not a pleasant feeling. The puzzles are so ridiculous these days.

Take Sodoku for example. I never got into sodoku. Why would I play a game that no one knows how to pronounce? I don’t know. That sounds dangerous to me. It sounds more like a form of kun fu fighting instead of a game with a bunch of squares and numbers.

Then I look down the page and I see a word search. (okay, so they don’t have word searches in the Cue section, but just go with me on this one). They frustrate me. Period. Especially when you’re searching for a word, and you start looking for it on the top of the word search, and the word just happens to be on the bottom. Then you spend two minutes cursing yourself for wasting so much time, when you could’ve easily started on the bottom of the page. Then while you’re busy being mad your self, you’re wasting more and more time. But none the less for the next word, you’re all set. You’ll start at the bottom and find it right away. Problem solved. WRONG! This one just happens to be on the top of the page. More cursing, more searching. Ultimately after spending an hour on one stupid puzzle, there’s one word left that you just can’t find. I’m pretty sure that word search makers, whoever they may be, purposely leave out one word for each puzzle they make. You can never win! No one likes the impossibility of winning. That’s just not fun.

Lastly there’s the crossword puzzle. Unless they’re some crossword puzzle that you have to do for a homework assignment, they’re nearly impossible. You have to be all powerful and all knowing in order to figure one of those things out. Honestly, how is someone supposed to figure out a word based on a one or two word clue? How about an example: 12. Hamilton’s worth. What on earth does that mean? Okay, it’s three letters. Pretty soon you’re going through all of the three letter words that you’ve ever heard someone say in English (maybe you’ll throw a few Swahili words in there), but nothing makes sense. Only would an expert on money figure this out. The answer is ten, because Hamilton’s on the ten dollar bill. I don’t know about you folks, but I’m not money expert, and I don’t plan on being one in the near future. But the good thing about crossword puzzles is that it’s easy to cheat, most of the time the answers are right on the bottom of the page. That’s the only true way anyone will ever complete a crossword puzzle.

So instead of escaping my boredom with puzzles and having fun, I find myself miserable. I knew I should’ve played tic-tac-toe…