February 22, 2006
Sudoku

A gamer? Not this kid.  Anyone incapable of mastering Pong, a person hapless when contending with Nintendo’s Super Mario brothers, has no rational reason to even consider Madden Football or Grand Theft Auto on the ‘puter.  Cards?  On a personal pain level, poker sits between root canals and slivers under the fingernail.  

Don’t think me totally inept when it comes to exercises in mental dexterity requiring an IQ higher than an eggplant.  I once made it all the way up to five correct words in a New York Times Sunday crossword before pitching it aside in disgust and did amaze a five year old grandson by circling all the names of farm animals hidden among the maze of letters in his puzzle book.  So how did it happen I allowed my wife, and the Sentinel, to bring a new form of low gaming self esteem to my life?  

Sudoku.    Appearing daily back by the classifieds, I didn’t know sudoku from broccoli ‘til Jan mentioned friends getting up before dawn to grab the morning paper off the driveway and beginning their day with a steaming cup of coffee and the challenge of a numerical puzzle.  I now know these people to be show-offs. 

According to Google, Sudoku comes from Japan.  Most likely it was invented to compete with the Chinese and their water torture.  Consisting of 3x3 sub-grid boxes placed inside a larger 9x9 grid, the idea is to fill in all the blank boxes with numbers in every row and column with digits one through nine used only once.  Not that I ever accomplished the goal. 

The “this oughta take five minutes” appearing puzzle is a daily Sentinel feature with Monday’s being the easiest and each day becoming more difficult until Sunday’s offering promises to make Rubik’s Cube a veritable walk in the park.    

On a drive to Denver, Jan spent the entire trip wrestling with a Monday puzzle, you know, the easy one.  Three and a half hours into the journey, somewhere around Floyd Hill, the paper on her lap had enough erasure marks it appeared to have spent the winter with General Washington and his troops at Valley Forge.   

Listening to the frustration mount, I glanced over her shoulder and blurted one of those husbandly stick your foot in your mouth until you choke remarks that are a constant in our marriage, “How tough can it be?” said I. “ Almost half the numbers are already in place when you start.” 

And that’s how, a week later, while sitting in front of the tube staring at the Olympics, a Sudoku puzzle plus a pencil were placed in my lap.  “Here you go genius.” 

 The first little 3 x 3 square took, at the most, fifteen minutes, maybe a pairs skating program or two plus a half-pipe gold medal performance.  Two hours later Bob Costas was into the day’s “Golden Olympic Moment” and I not only hadn’t completed squares two thru nine but square one was now in complete disarray and my disposition had deteriorated to the point it fell far short of the Olympic goal whereby the people in the world are to come together in peace.