PROFILES IN GARBAGE

"Ask not whether you can do the puzzle, but whether you can find the puzzle..."

Word searches as a child, then Sudoku and KenKen as tools to stave off the march of dementia in my 40s and 50s:  all have had their respective Days when it comes to my serial obsessions, but crossword puzzles have inspired the most devotion from me. I’ve always loved words, running to the dictionary even as a young girl to look up and absorb an unfamiliar arrangement of letters. While reading, I delight in happening upon a recently acquired addition to my vocabulary in situ as if running into an new, favorite acquaintance. My love of crosswords is such that I have even combined this love with my evolving knowledge of Italian, delighting in doing ‘parole crociate’ (the Italian for ‘crossword puzzle’ – everything sounds better in Italian, don’t you think?!).

When I was a child, the section of the newspaper that brought me the most joy was the People section, which included puzzles as well as advice columns. I rocked the Jumble and ignored the rest. When I got older, I not only read the actual news but I also found myself trying and then completing the crossword puzzles with regularity. When I had kids, my free time was parsed into small, brief blocks of mere minutes scattered throughout the day, and I found that crossword puzzles were a light, easy way to engage my mind. As a mother of young children, it was nice to feel that I’d started and then actually finished something during the day. 

When the poor quality of our local paper deteriorated to the point where I actually refused their phone offer of a free month of newspaper, we switched to one of Canada’s national papers, The Globe and Mail. I adjusted to the style of their crossword puzzle, preferring it to the lame-ass puzzle of our previous newspaper. But this worked the other way, too: I now found that doing any other paper’s puzzle was not as satisfying as the Globe’s puzzle, so now I was limited. I’d developed a wavelength, grown to share a vibe with the Globe’s clues and their answers. My (Globe) crossword competency improved, and I completed the puzzle more often than not. I enjoyed the process of trying to match synonyms with clues, making everything fit in meaning and in space. On one memorable occasion, I completed my crossword before discovering that my answers, which all fit and were valid responses to the clues, were completely different from the published solution!  

Then, iPads became available. My husband got one and loved it. Online newspapers were more common, and my husband wanted to go (news) paperless. I balked, but ultimately agreed when my husband suggested I buy my own iPad in lieu of receiving a daily copy of the paper. Besides, he reasoned, the Globe was available online, though sans puzzles, as well as other newspapers (The New York Times! Still can’t do their puzzles, though).

Before long, I was lamenting the loss of my puzzle access. I couldn’t find the Globe crossword online, nor could I find another crossword, online or off, that satisfied my puzzle pangs/crossword cravings. The puzzles I tried were too easy, too esoteric, too abstruse, too simple. I preferred the comfort of newsprint; I still do. Even the font and print size of the Globe puzzles were comforting, not to mention the familiarity and dependability of the Globe layout. 

I started looking at my neighbors’ recycling bags. For a few happy months, my downstairs neighbors got the Globe and would recycle the entire paper in pristine condition. I’d visit the recycling bags downstairs the night before garbage pickup and pick out all of the puzzles for the week, including the more extensive Saturday crossword.

That source, and then others, dried up. Friends who received the Globe were also puzzle aficionados. When my neighbors, one by one, discontinued receiving print newspapers, as was and continues to be the trend, I had to venture farther afield. Soon, I was traveling by bike to find my fix. I scoured my neighborhood, encompassing approximately 25 x 15 blocks (we don’t own a car, so I cycle all over, but my newspaper catchment area needed to be small enough for easy puzzle retrieval). That’s me, the woman on her Dutch-style bike with the panniers and basket, digging through your paper recycling bag and examining (but never judging!) your newspaper choices. Over time the process became more streamlined, of course: I learned who had the Globe, the National Post, Chinese newsprint, The Financial Times, and who settled for the Vancouver Sun or The Province. Most, of course, subscribed to nothing at all.

From amongst those subscribers to the Globe, I learned early whose bag would yield a frisson of pleasure followed by heartbreak upon finding an already-completed or worse, a partially-completed puzzle. My dopamine receptors would sing when I scored a blank, untouched page of puzzles – note the plural: by this time, I also craved the Sudoku and KenKen, and with the crossword these formed a search image of a familiar visual triumvirate. These sources, too, soon vanished.

I tried to be more flexible, sampling other local papers’ crossword offerings. One in particular offered an ENTIRE PAGE of crosswords from different sources that required, presumably, different skill levels. I set about solving one puzzle and after several minutes’ frustration realized that I was reading clues for one puzzle and trying to enter my answers into a different puzzle. My low point came when I found myself struggling with the moral issue of stealing a cafe’s Globe puzzle page (I couldn’t do it): I tried asking if I could have the puzzle page, but for some reason this often produced confusion among the baristas that was heartbreaking to witness, especially when they would insist on asking management.

I Usually Act Alone…

While scouting for my puzzles, I rode down alleyways and became adept, from atop a moving bicycle, at identifying the most promising recycling bags by their physical profile:  shape, color, fullness, degree of bulging. If the bag was all misshapen and full, there was no joy to be had: the bag was a mere receptacle for egg cartons, Amazon Prime boxes and

discarded mail. I even started visually assessing likely houses in the area before checking their recycling bags, a kind of ‘periodical profiling’, actually an effective strategy for a time. There were areas that were Solidly Sun, Notably National, Primarily Province, but never Generously Globe. Once a good source was identified, I’d return week after week to the same bag, even gliding by on my daily cycling route in case they’d put out their garbage early for a quick, efficient pickup. Rain was not, is not a deterrent and if the papers are wet, I need to be careful as I tear the puzzled pages from their non-puzzled neighbor pages and then dry them when I get them home. I developed “technique”! My husband is amused by my insistence on going out on garbage night, although he prefers I refrain from asking him to “stop the car, I just want to check for my puzzle” if we are out driving on garbage night.

In my puzzle perambulations, I often encounter binners (aka dumpster divers, etc.) who are on their own hunt for refundable bottles and the like. Every single binner I’ve met has been friendly and not at all competitive, and when I immediately assure them that I am after puzzles, not bottles, they are quick to offer suggestions (the most common was to “check the apartment buildings’ bins”, which I’d already found was a poor bet) or happy to just chat for a few minutes. A couple of times I’ve encountered a homeowner/benefactor in the act of putting out their papers. This is awkward if they are a reliable puzzle source. They

either watch me suspiciously or possibly extend a refundable bottle in my direction, whereupon I thank them and reassure them that I am there “looking for puzzles”. At this, they usually look as confused as if they’d been asked for an 11-letter word for indomitable (“pertinacious”,  “irresistible”). In one instance, I noticed that after meeting the Globe subscriber whilst plumbing their discarded papers, one of my best sources at the time, the papers ceased to appear in the recycling – I still shake my head over that one. Maybe it was my bright orange fun fur jacket that spooked them, or my bike parked at the base of the tiny grassy knoll in the alley on which their recycling bags lay…

After a couple of years of this, I finally located the Globe puzzle online. It is timed, has letter reveals and checking options, which have resulted in a lazier puzzle experience for me. There is still no access to the Saturday puzzle, however, and so I continue to mine the paper recycling bags. I have a steady source which I visit the night before garbage collection where I unearth my puzzles. The Saturday Puzzle remains my favorite crossword of the week:  a nice, long sit-down (some longer than others) with the feel of paper, the solidity of my pen on the newsprint (I work ALL my puzzles in pen, less due to arrogance and more to poor eyesight. Plus, for that satisfying pen-feel from when I, as a small child, used to pretend to grade papers, just like a Teacher! I was a HARD grader, too, despite not yet knowing how to write – lots of red pen. Always a critic…). There’s nothing like the visceral satisfaction of viewing a completed puzzle with its lack of timed pressure and heavily inked corrections. Or, if the puzzle is just too abstruse or I just can’t seem to get any clues entered (it happens), I can toss it with impunity into the recycling bag where I hope it will not break anyone’s heart. 

NB: The Abraham Zap-rooting-through-the-recycling-bag film is not yet available on YouTube.