Crosswords and the Borrowers

Almost every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I have the opportunity to pick up a free newspaper on campus at one of the little stands that I pass by. I started doing this sometime last semester, thinking Ya know, I should really make an effort to keep up on current events and what’s happening in my community.

So I would grab one, take it down to the study lounge with me, and take a look inside–skipping over the boring stuff, looking for the interesting stuff that’s typically either a story about someone else’s utter stupidity or someone else’s selflessness and generosity. Then eventually, after about 5 minutes of browsing through the pages and finding enjoyment in that beautiful sound and feeling of the paper crumpling between my fingers, I give up and get back onto Facebook.

I know. Lame.

But over the past couple months, I’ve hardly even looked at the paper, even though I continue to get one every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. You see, the paper now serves a new purpose for me.

Crossword puzzles.

Growing up, I always saw crossword puzzles as something that old people did because they had no lives. But I know better now. They. Are. So. Addicting.

Come on. A stinkin’ crossword puzzle? Really?

Yes, really. My sister and I have been hooked for at least two months now. Ever since she graduated college and moved back home for a little while, we’ve gotten to spend a lot of quality time together, making up for the time we’ve spent apart over the past few years. And instead of going out to eat, or going to events/parties, or doing each other’s hair (which, for the record, we’ve never really done)…we’re doing crossword puzzles.

There’s just something about reading those clues, and knowing about a fourth of the answers, and looking up the rest of them on Google, and filling in those blanks that’s so….exhilarating. Plus, we’ve actually learned a thing or two. So most afternoons when I get home from classes, one of the first things she’ll ask me is, “Did you get the paper?”

Yes. Yes, I did.

I swear we’ve already become those two old women sisters who spend afternoons together doing crosswords, playing cards, and watching old movies.

Last night, I got home around 11:30 pm and even though the ‘rents were asleep, neither of us felt like going to bed yet. So what did we do? What every twenty-year-old and twenty-three-year-old does at midnight, of course: We turned on Netflix and found that it had one of our favorite childhood movies on instant.

The Borrowers.

If you’ve never seen this movie, you are seriously deprived. Little people stealing–oh, I’m sorry–borrowing things from human “beans,” and getting trapped in the freezer, and almost drowning in milk bottles, and just barely escaping being suffocated by cheese…it’s *sigh* amazing. So go watch it. Now.

If you’re wondering what my point is, I’m getting there.

The point is…my sister and I are old women. At least we act like we are. And we are perfectly okay with that because we enjoy what we’re doing. We have fun, and somehow…we bond. After spending the past year in craziness–her finishing school, traveling the country, and just being her normal busy self, and me drowning myself in schoolwork and attempting to still have a life–we are now able to just sit down on a chilly afternoon, open the paper, do crosswords and word scrambles, play card games, and watch old movies.

It’s beautiful. And I plan on doing it for as long as we still have the time. Because who knows when we’ll have an opportunity again in our lives for this every day, what with all the getting a job, then a career, and then boyfriends, and then married, and then having kids, and then having teenagers (big difference), and then working our butts off for them to go through college and then finally at some point in our old old age, retiring.

It could be a while.

Moral of the story: Keep calm and do a crossword puzzle.