Well, first off, let me admit I hate Sudoku-- not because of some random bias, but because I don't get anything out of it. At the end, I've got... a box full of numbers.

At the end of a crossword puzzle, however, that my husband and I inevitably have completed together, I've always learned something, or discovered a new connection or sideway definition for a word I hadn't realized before. Not to mention the historical and biblical references that I hadn't known before I completed. I literally read BETTER because I do crossword puzzles.

Which brings me to the other thing: I bet most word puzzlers are also avid readers. We love words, in more than just one reductive way. I certainly read a fair amount, but it's a solo activity that I'm not going to do while my husband is staring at me across the breakfast table. So we turn on the radio, have some tea, and do the crossword together. Sounds weird, huh?

Then there's this paragraph:

"I know that I'm a partisan divider, but to me it seems that puzzle people are fleeing from real puzzles—fleeing the complexity, the fear of the unknown, fleeing from the messiness of life that cannot be contained in a box, fleeing to an illusion of mastery and control. They're control freaks seeking control of something worthless: "I can fill in a bunch of boxes with letters!" "

Reading fiction, at least, does the same thing-- reduces the world to plot lines that are easily followed, culminating in a crisis, climax and resolution. We, as people, have a need to make order out of chaos-- whether it's through a puzzle or a movie or a book. Dramatic structure is just as much an escape from real life as a puzzle is.

And who thinks Wait Wait is an "intellectual challenge"? It's a test of how much NPR you listened to that week. Come on, try harder!