Hard games

For a long time now, I have subscribed to Games Magazine.  Whenever it arrives, Sweet Hubby knows that I will become unavailable for a while as I work my way through the number games, crosswords, crypto puzzles, variations on Sudoku, etc.  There are games in this magazine for pretty much every level of player, all sorts of games, from easy to deadly hard.

I tend to go right for the word games, such as The World's Most Ornery Crossword, Rows Garden, Some Assembly Required, Solitary Hangman.  There are a few puzzles I skip because they're boring, such as Word Search.  And a few I skip, mostly logic and strategic puzzles, because they simply elude me.

So today, I decided I would try to solve one of the logic puzzles.  This one was about Goldilocks and the three bears ordering sundaes and buying toys.  I'm sure that, just as with a Rubik's Cube, there is a way of looking/perceiving/understanding the puzzle which makes it almost transparent, a snap to solve.  "I'm smart," I thought.  "All I need to do is take my time and pay attention to the clues.  People do these all the time.  I can do this."

I sat for a full hour, with my face in my hands, going over and over the clues, making little X's in the provided chart to log what I learned, silently groaning with frustration and despair.  I just couldn't get it.  I tried, really I did.  I just could not fill in enough of the blanks to finally see the solution of who bought which sundae and which toy and in what order.

Now I have a headache.  Not every Something New is fun.