By Naomi Serviss / New York City
I can’t get into Wordle.
Apparently, I’m the only one.
This ubiquitous and addictive
daily word challenge
seems to have freakishly appeared
out of nowhere.
Laser-beaming its way
across myriad social platforms,
scooping up word mavens.
Who wouldn’t welcome
an enticing distraction
from Covid-triggered anxiety?
In the before-times,
Wordle brags would be
communally shared.
Water cooler fodder.
Now players
Facebook post or text their scores.
Giddy with a winner’s high.
Diehard gamers wait nervously
for midnight,
when a fresh new conquest awaits.
The game was created
by software engineer Josh Wardle
late last year.
After feasting ad nauseum
on popular online word games,
Wardle was determined
to out-puzzle the puzzlers.
He did by hatching Wordle, a clueless puzzle.
I can barely complete
the New York Times' crossword puzzle
with clues.
Diving into a fresh one
every day,
gives me a headache.
In November 2021,
the game had 90 players.
In January, more than
2 million word junkies
chased the dragon.
After being kneecapped by Covid
two years ago
(seems longer),
millions are hyper-focused
on any shiny thing
that creates buzz.
Welcome Wordle, what took you so long?
Friends report playing Wordle
is respite
from catastrophic thinking about:
Climate Change
Unvaccinated covidiots
Omicron
Our kids
Biden’s gaffes
Toilet paper…again!
No wonder Wordle
is the latest mood ring.
Until it jumps the shark,
this diversion has legs.
But, for my money, it’s just not appealing.
My mother
was a crossword puzzle fiend.
The Sunday New York Times' was her favorite.
Her weekly ritual
was doing the crossword
in pen.
Sat in a
nondescript, secondhand colonial
living-room corner chair,
sipping Pepsi after Pepsi,
chain-smoking
unfiltered Philip Morris cigarettes.
When brown bits dotted her tongue
after every exhale,
she’d nonchalantly pick off
and flick them.
Lucy’s vocabulary was extensive,
and she knew how to use it.
When angered,
her dramatic theatrics were epic:
“I work my fingers to the bone for you.”
“You’re going to give me a heart attack.”
“I’m always the happy clown.”
Must give her credit.
She did summon
her considerable acting
and directing chops,
which were legion.
She was Lucille Ball Lite,
short red hair to boot.
We lived in
the second-floor apartment
of a carved-up Victorian
with a sizeable porch,
on tree-lined Montgomery Avenue
in Elkins Park,
a coveted Philadelphia suburb.
The landlady, Mrs. Aurora Malfitano,
taught Italian at Cheltenham High School.
She sang opera and was kind to me.
Hired me to sweep the porch weekly
for 50 cents.
I saved up to buy treasures
from the book shop
near the Villager store
on Ashbourne Road.
When we moved to Colonial Apartments,
across from
the Elkins Park train station,
I hoped that apartment would be
the one
in my mother’s eyes.
Wishful thinking.
That old worse-for-wear,
three-floored red brick building
reeked of ancient dust
and a hint of death.
There was a dumbwaiter
across from the mailboxes.
Our second-floor apartment
was a warren of rooms
with two doors.
Thin walls
separated our apartment
from our neighbors.
The middle-aged alcoholic couple
drank and raged nightly.
My brother put
a drinking glass
against our common wall
to better hear
the frightening arguments
and slurred curses.
He laughed unselfconsciously.
I was terrified and ashamed,
hoping Lucy’s bingo game
would soon end.
Games of luck juiced her,
bingo was a thrice-weekly habit.
Her thirst was never quenched.
Lucy was a hard-working
single parent of five,
barely scraping by.
Yet we always had a big color TV.
Layaway.
In one apartment,
she inexplicably
had wall-to-wall carpeting installed.
Her maternal skills were zilch.
Inappropriate behavior was the norm.
Lucy threw raucous parties
attended by
doctors and nurses from work.
She was a medical transcriptionist
for a radiology office
at Philadelphia’s
Broad Street and Olney Avenue.
A crowd of laughing, drinking adults
swelled the small apartment.
They were playing a version of Pin the Tail.
Lucy said it was “Goose the Moose.”
My seven-year-old self was eager to play.
She told me to close my eyes.
“Stick out your finger,” she instructed.
I did.
My digit was guided into a thick goo.
When I opened my eyes,
my mother was holding a jar of Vaseline.
And laughing.
My face crimsoned.
I understood years later.
A different game
required two special silver frogs.
My mother prompted me to flip them over.
I puzzled
over the anatomically correct amphibians.
Bolting to my corner
of the empty bedroom
shared with two sisters and a brother,
I felt flush.
Sucking my right thumb
comforted me for
three more years until I hit double digits.
We all need comforting during this awful time.
Wordle fills the bill for many.
I’m no longer triggered
by the NYT crossword puzzle.
I do my best
and sometimes finish
in record time.
Not bragging, just reporting.
That Mini Puzzle can be a beast.
Naomi Serviss is a New York-based award-winning journalist whose work has been published in The New York Times, Newsday, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Highroads (AAA magazine), in-flight publications, spa and travel magazines and websites, including BroadwayWorld.com