The Rooster Within

On those rare weekend mornings when Mark and I are both home (he typically works weekends), my heart rate increases as the last section of the newspaper is dropped at our feet.  Soon enough, I know, one of us will wander to the basement to make a photocopy of the crossword puzzle.

Just seeing the slightly greyed photocopy sends me into paroxysms of cocksure giddiness.  As he hands me my copy, like clockwork, Mark will then remind me (as a lame kind of insurance policy, I tell myself) that "it isn't a competition!"

We have developed a kind of crossword vernacular over the years.

"I'm in!" is the nerd equivalent of throwing down the gauntlet. Suddenly, all bets are off, and Mark's earlier claim of noncompetition is nowhere to be found.

We both work in pen--brazen, I know!--although I think there are times when Mark would like to reach for a pencil.  Not because he is unsure of his own answer, but because he doubts mine.

This doubt usually seeps in on a Saturday morning, when the puzzles are hardest.  Just when the word "uncle" is just about to form on our lips--blank squares taunting us--we reluctantly agree to work together a bit, throwing each other a bone or two to help get us through.    He'll ask me a question and measure the validity of my answer by the way in which it is framed.

If "oh, yeah" accompanies my answer, that's when he wishes he had a pencil.  Apparently, that two-word phrase seeping from my mouth is much like Spinal Tap's claim that their amp "goes to eleven"--proof of sheer and utter nonsense.

The thing is, though, this smarmy, cracked-veneer side of my personality--lame as it is--is still a part of my personality.  Just because it smells like a barnyard doesn't mean it's not me, especially considering the absence of actual farm animals in the room.

Apparently (I use the word "apparently" as though I am shocked to learn this), crossword non-competitions aren't the only events that bring forth this impudent swagger.  Just ask Kristie and Jill--my Scrabble pals.  There, in front of the 441 squares of this most holy altar, I continually show my brazen side, making up definitions of wobbly words with the same certainty that Chicken Little clucked that the sky was falling.  Like some kind of board-game Judas, I sputter forth lies and deceits as though my life depended on it.

How on earth do I live with myself, then?  Like a social smoker, I tell myself I don't really have a problem.  That I've got this under control.  My situational lack of ethics is just a fun little outfit I put on, like some kind of sideshow act intended to entertain my friends and family.  I know I certainly draw pleasure from this unabashed approach to fun and frivolity.

And, at the end of the day, this lip-sneer inducing side of me really is an actual side to me.  So I might as well make my peace with it.

At least, that's what I'm telling myself.  Oh, yeah.