The Peanut Paradox

My girlfriend is addicted to peanut butter. No, seriously--I've considered physically restraining her from finishing off half a jar in a sitting. Or stealing her peanut butter. Or distracting her with pictures of cute kittens--hey, whatever works, you know? It's a matter of life and death-by-stuck-together-jaws. As deaths go, though, she'd probably enjoy it--but hey, that's obsession for you.

On the topic of obsessions though, I recently had a moment of unreality. Halfway through a Friday crossword, I felt like I'd walked right into David Sedaris' essay "21 Down". Holy haggis, I thought. This shit is real! The mania, the frenzy, the pounding of each miniscule blood vessel in my head, and the exquisite thirst for victory overwhelmed me. I needed to capture that elusive word, needed to fill every gloating little box with triumphant ink. And I caught myself reliving Sedaris' story as I hunched over that rag of newsprint, fuming and frowning, tapping my foot impatiently as I racked my aching brain. Northern Missouri, drab and dead in winter's clutch, rolled on by in a blur of brown while I muttered, bit my nails, chewed my lips, and scratched at my stubble with the plastic pen cap. If it weren't for the seat-belt, I'd have been pacing.

Fucking words--we make 'em only to torment ourselves with 'em. Are we masochistic apes or what? To solve a crossword is one of the stupidest, yet most insanely gratifying accomplishments available to modern humankind. To flick the sweat from one's brow, lean back with a sigh, and flush with orgasmic exhilaration at having successfully pinned down every bloody tease of a box with a definite thing--is there anything more ridiculous, and more rhapsodical?

And yet, from Monday to Friday I repeat the ludicrous process, raising my blood pressure, lacing the air with profanity, and generally committing assault and battery on hapless paper. A little wordplay, that's all it is, like a spoonful of salty, mouth-watering, jaw-gluing peanut butter--until, that is, your spoon scrapes the metaphorical bottom and you realize you've been yelling obscenities at a dead sheet of tree-pulp, and oh, you've got a puddle of ink all down your wrist from squeezing your pen. Whoops.