Janet wrote: Sat Dec 25, 2021 4:54 pm
A Visit from the WSJ -- (need some help to finish this!)
Twas the night before Monday and all through the net,
Solvers were solving who hadn't solved yet;
The clues were gathered on a notepad with care,
In hopes that the meta soon would be there;
The shore-party were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of mugs danced in their heads
OK, request acknowledged:
Mamma in jammies and a cat in my lap,
We had just settled in for some TV pap,
When on the computer there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter.
Away to the laptop I flew like a flash,
Tore open the cover and hit a backslash.
The window opened upon a new page,
And words did appear, as if from some sage
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a path to solution all crisp and clear,
What a cagey constructor with the grin of a tyke,
I knew in a moment it must be our Mike.
More slowly than treacle the letters they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, a common refrain:
"Now, look at the title, the theme words, the clues !
Oh come on, concentrate like I know you can do!
To the top of the page! to the list of the clues!
Now solve away, solve away, solve away true!"
Wild scribbles on pages that get tossed to the floor,
Each met with an obstacle, and helped me no more;
So up to my ankles the discards they grew
My pencils all dull, my hands black and blue
And then, in a twinkling, I got me a hunch
The scrawling and writing had helped me a bunch.
As I worked it all out, and was turning around,
From the margins an answer came with a bound.
It looked to be right, met all the constraints,
To finally arrive, what a picture it paints;
Mike had some herrings behind his back,
And my smile disappeared as one came from the pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! His laughter, how merry!
But a menacing smile made it seem very scary!
The corners of his mouth were drawn tight in a smirk,
And now it appeared the AHA didn’t work;
The stump of a marker he held tight in his hand,
And he quickly showed I was not on the sand;
He had a sweatshirt with a Nittany Lion
And a box of Kleenex cause he saw I was crying
Not chubby or plump, with a solid set jaw,
And I laughed though my certain destruction I saw;
A wink of his eye and a shake of his head
Soon gave me to know my solution was dead;
They’d not pick my e-mail, no mug for my work,
I’d toiled for hours to end up as a jerk,
But laying his fingers just under his chin,
He gave me a nod that said “try again”;
He ran to the door, to his team gave a whistle,
In an Uber they flew down the road like a missile.
But I heard him exclaim, ere they drove out of sight—
“There’s another next week, maybe you’ll get it right!”
