Just thinking out loud, but probably a long term mistake to "always" expect anything when it comes to Mike Shenk, Matt Gaffney and the other metas maestros.mikeB wrote: ↑Mon Jul 12, 2021 12:36 am What a great meta. For me, the term TABLE in the title had three involvements. The first was to suggest the Periodic Table of the Elements, which points to using the atomic symbols. The second was to implicate the contents of the Periodic Table itself (Caution: rabbit hole ahead!). The third was the synonymity of DISCREET and UNDER THE TABLE, which for me offered no help getting to the solution but did serve to authenticate the solution once it was found. My rabbit hole, after trying to make something of the eight letters in the atomic symbols, was to download the Periodic Table itself to try to work it using UNDER as a hint. Putting the meta aside for a few hours, I returned and “noticed” AG and AU in the grid, and that was that. My lesson learned: Always expect a term of directionality (such as UNDER) in the title to refer to the crossword grid (or possibly to the clue list); don’t try to apply a hint like that to a resource outside the puzzle, like the Periodic Table. Rabbit holes always look relevant until they don't.
For example, at the end of TOPBANANA sat NANA. "Under" NaNa in the outside reference might have been "SS", Sodium, and possibly the end of an adjective?
Like you and others, I really liked this puzzle because it combined many meta elements (get it?)