Okay, so let’s talk about today’s New York Times crossword.
I usually try to tackle it in the morning, brew some coffee, sit down, and see how far I get. Today was pretty smooth sailing for a while, I was knocking out the acrosses and downs pretty nicely in the top left corner.
Then I hit a bit of a snag somewhere in the middle section. There was this clue, something like, “Completely soak, as in a downpour.” Six letters. I stared at it for a good minute. My first thought was maybe ‘saturate’, but that’s too long. ‘Soaked’? No, that didn’t feel quite right for the clue, and it didn’t fit with the ‘N’ I already had penciled in for the fourth letter from a crossing word.
Let’s see… what else means to get really wet? I thought about ‘flood’, but that’s five letters. I looked at the letters I had again. I think it was something like D _ _ N C H. Hmm. Drench? Yeah, D-R-E-N-C-H. That fit the letter count perfectly, and it matched that ‘N’ and the ‘H’ I had at the end from another word going down.
Figuring it Out
It just clicked. You get drenched in a downpour. It has that stronger sense of being utterly soaked than just ‘wet’ or ‘soaked’. It felt right. So, I filled it in.
It’s always satisfying when you puzzle over a clue like that for a bit and then the answer just slots right in. Helps you unlock the words around it too. Once ‘drench’ was in place, a couple of the crossing down words immediately made sense. That’s the fun part, seeing how everything connects.
Anyway, that was my little crossword journey with ‘drench’ today. Just chipping away at it, one clue at a time. Always a good way to get the brain working.
