A CHAMPION IN MY BOX
June 21, 2020
So I’m staked out in my usual spot, on the sofa, working a Sudoku puzzle: for once amazed at my sudden brilliance as I pencil in the last number, completing the puzzle that is rated as ‘diabolical.’ And in this confounded pandemic, the only person within social distance I can share this triumph with is Eunice, currently immersed in her umpteenth cozy mystery on her every-flowing Kindle. Her praise, while well-intended, feels much like, “Oh, you translated that Sanskrit slab into ancient Greek. How wonderful!” I see Sudoku as more responsible for its isolation-like qualities than Eunice’s lack of enthusiasm for it. After all, she’s not a ‘math’ person. Numbers are not her thing. When she’s not reading, she prefers crossword puzzles, but not too hard ones. I download daily puzzles for her, and she’s found they get harder as they progress through the week. She prefers Monday through Wednesday and an occasional Thursday. I tried to introduce a Times puzzle to her, but she rejected it. I even offered myself as a resource, but she prefers to go it alone. Usually, the next day, she has the completed answer puzzle. That’s another difference with Sudoku. They do publish the answer puzzle on the following day, but it’s irrelevant because you can’t use it to solve your mistakes, seeing the right numbers in the squares doesn’t do a thing for helping you understand how you might have solved it. Crosswords can be fun to solve by participation; in our younger days, when car trips were legal (I tend to exaggerate) Eunice and I used to solve them for miles. Sadly, that doesn’t work with Sudoku. (Give me a number between 1 and 7, but not a 3.)
Another thing, with crosswords, maybe not now so much, but there was a telephone number to call if you needed help in solving the puzzle (and you couldn’t wait even a single day). To temper the offer, it was usually a 900 number.
I’m wondering now how many employees were fired for calling too many 900 numbers while on the job. It’s a crazy world.
Sudoku wasn’t around in my early years. It was a Swiss math maven who introduced its gaming potential in the 18th century. Popularized in Europe, then by the Japanese who condensed their name for it, ‘suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru’, into “Sudoku” (Not to be confused with karaoke, which means ‘empty orchestra’.) The name means, the numbers must remain single. And, single in our boxes, we Sudoku players are destined to celebrate our wins in a vacuum.
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