To provoke cross words, you can’t beat crosswords

Every morning before rising to face the pain and laughter of another day, Cinelli and I do a crossword puzzle together.

We adhere to the theory that if we use our brains in leisure rather then burning them out watching “Jeopardy” we are less likely to lapse into senility for at least another few years.

I lack the speed and knowledge to compete with those who must spend their lives memorizing the Encyclopaedia Britannica in order to know, for instance, the name of the person who first set foot on Rhode Island or the artisan who created the knife that killed Julius Caesar.

Cinelli, on the other hand, is able to come up with answers to questions like the day of the week that the Spanish Armada was sunk in the English Channel.

When I ask how she knew it, she shrugs and says, “Everyone knows that.”

The phrase is not constituted to reveal her humility but to point out that I should have known it too.

It is a muted salvo fired in the battle of the sexes.

Once we played Scrabble, but that got pretty crazy when she began accusing me of making up words. I explained that I was simply employing words so new that they had not yet found their way into Google.

“The word Google itself,” I said in the manner of Alan Greenspan explaining the economic theories of laissez-faire to a washer woman, “is not even in the dictionary, but still a good deal of the proletariat will use Google with impunity.”

“I’ve had it with you,” she said, her pupils turning a deep red. “You’re a cheat and a nut! No more Scrabble!”

Working crossword puzzles together is the final frontier of bloodless marital competition. As a friend used to remark to his wife whom he insisted on helping in the kitchen, “If we can’t cooperate on cooking, all we have left are sex and bowling.”

The way it works is that I am the puzzle master in the sense that I ask the questions and fill in the answers, and she is essentially the solver.

A problem with the arrangement is that she often jumps in with the answer when I haven’t even finished announcing the clue.

For instance, six down is a four-letter word for “(blank) Kleine Nachtmusik,” but before I can finish the last word, she says “Eine!” I say, “Wait for the clue!” She says, “Why? You don’t know things like that. You know that Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs and that’s very nice, dear, and very helpful, but you don’t know Mozart.”

She might be right about that and I am willing to let it go until, looking over my shoulder, she suddenly says, “Pygmalion!”

“I haven’t given any of the damned clue yet, for God’s sake!”

“Don’t swear,” she says, “people will think you’re trailer trash. Anyhow, it’s no big deal. You had the ‘p’ already for the down word wisp, the ‘y’ for O’day and the ‘g’ for ring. It was easy to figure out that it was probably Pygmalion. What’s the clue?”

“To hell with it,” I say. “If you know the answer, what good is the clue?”

“All right, don’t be testy, I won’t jump the answer anymore. What was the clue?”

I am about to tell her when she suddenly says, “Zola!” and then covers her mouth and says, “Oops, I didn’t mean to do that. I saw the ‘z’ from razor and the ‘l’ from Seles and it just popped out.”

“Enough,” I say, handing her the puzzle book. “You can be the puzzle master and I can come up with the answers! We’ll just see how you like them apples!”

“Why do you always say ‘them apples’? It makes you sound like a farmer.”

“Just do the puzzle.”

She sighs. “You get upset so easily. Give me a six-letter word for weapons of the Myrmidons.” Before I can even begin to answer, she says, “That’s an easy one. ‘Spears.’ ”

“You did it again!”

“Calm down, Elmer. I studied the Myrmidons in a class on ancient history. You studied, well, beer. I’ll bet you can name five brands just like that! Bud, Heineken, Pabst Blue Ribbon, the one with the big horsies . . . “

“You know the beer brands too?”

“Not nearly as well as you, dear, I’m sure. I’ve always been so proud of you knowing so much about beer.”

I work out a plan. I will not even announce the clue. It asks for the name of the 11th president of the United States, which I happen to know, although I don’t know why. I shout, “James K. Polk!” before she can say a word.

She says, “Wow, I’m impressed. And, of course, you know his middle name. Most people do.” She glances at the blank look on my face, smiles sweetly and says, “Knox.”

No more puzzles. Back to bowling.

Almtz13@aol.com