Erudite

Monday night, I was in Peoria for bowling night, so beforehand i stopped in to Barnes & Noble to check out their supply of desk calendars. I've always been a sucker for those things. This year, I had three calendars - Boggle, Tangrams and Sudoku. The Sudoku one (which I received as a gift) I did for about a month and ended up giving it away. The Tangrams one I kept up with until about Setember, but messing with the magnets got to be a pain, so I quit doing that one too. But the Boggle one I kept up with - it usually doesn't take very long and it's a good way to get the mental juices flowing in the morning.

Anyway, I was looking through their new calendars for 2008, and there were three that caught my eye - the Boggle calendar for 2008, a Scrabble calendar (another of my favorite games) and a New York Times crossword-puzzle-a-day calendar. I was going to get all 3, but at the last second, I decided against the Boggle one and bought the other two. When it was finally my turn to pay, the little cutie behind the counter saw the New York Times calendar and said 'Ooh - the New York Times crossword calendar - I had the 2007 one and those puzzles are hard!" I asked her if she was able to finish any of them and she said "A few, but not easily - they're really difficult!"

Now I love crossword puzzles - I would say I'm not necessarily any good at them, but I more often than not finish them, and a lot of the time without needing outside assistance (dictionary, internet, etc.). Judging by this girl's demeanor and appearance, she seemed the intellectual type - cute as a button, but definitely well spoken and probably the honor-student type. Also, the fact that she owned the 2007 calendar backed up my impression - I mean, how many dumb girls try their luck with a crossword puzzle every day? I left the bookstore thinking if she struggled with these things, what am I doing trying? I probably should have gone with the Boggle calendar - that's probably more in tune with my intellectual level than the lofty New York Times crossword calendar!

Well, I brought the calendars into work this morning, and opened them up and put them on my desk. And since January 1st is a work holiday, I thought I'd give the first crossword puzzle a try. Let's just say that I've learned my lesson - you shouldn't judge people by their first impressions!! I breezed through that crossword puzzle in a matter of minutes!! Now I realize that January 1st is a Tuesday, and the puzzles get increasingly harder as the week goes on, culminating with the imposing Sunday crossword, but if the subsequent puzzles are like the first one, I think I made the right decision!!

Maybe (just maybe) I'll find a trivia calendar and post a daily trivia question on my blog. That might be fun!