Man, today I decided to tackle that New York Times Mini Crossword, the one with the clue “See ya later!” I figured it’d be a quick little brain teaser, but boy, was I in for a ride.
First, I grabbed my phone and pulled up the puzzle. The grid stared back at me, mostly empty. I started with the across clues, skimming through them, you know, just to get a feel for things. Nothing really jumped out at me at first.
- 1 Across: “___-mo” (Slo, for short). Okay, not bad, got that one down.
- 2 Down: “Prefix with ‘potent’”. Hmm, I thought, maybe “OMNI”? Yeah, that fits.
- 3 Down: “Belly button”. Okay here we go, that must be “NAVEL”, I filled in it.
Then I hit it. 6 Across: “See ya later!” Seven letters. My mind went blank. I mean, there are tons of ways to say goodbye, right? “Adios,” “Farewell,” “So long,” but none of those fit. I tried a few other clues, hoping to get some intersecting letters to help me out, but no luck.
I paced around my living room a bit, trying to let it come to me naturally. Maybe grab a cup of coffee? Nope, nothing. It was like my brain just refused to cooperate. I even started going through the alphabet, trying to sound out different possibilities. “A-something,” “B-something”… nothing sounded right.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity but was probably just 15 minutes, I decided to check the date of the puzzle. April 21st, 2024. Maybe there’s a hint on the Internet? I mean, I didn’t want to cheat, just get a little nudge, you know? So I did a quick search for “NYT Mini Crossword April 21” and scanned through a couple of results. And there it was. Some website had a whole list of answers for that day’s puzzle. “See ya later!” They had it listed clear as day: “ADIOSES”.
ADIOSES! Of course! It felt so obvious once I saw it. I plugged it into the puzzle, and bam, a few other clues fell into place. Finished the whole thing in a couple more minutes.
So, yeah, that’s how I spent my morning. Wrestling with a seven-letter word for goodbye. But hey, at least I got it in the end. Now, time to go find something else to occupy my brain with. Maybe a jigsaw puzzle this time, something a little less… wordy.
