The challenge this blog poses for me is to make it appealable to folks who don’t do the daily puzzle that inspires it. I think the first post was a little too puzzle-centric and may have scared some of you away. So I’m going to try to minimize the puzzle matter and maximize the tangents it leads me on.

For example, I’ll just note that today’s puzzle had the clue: “Subject of a drawing, perhaps,” and the answer was DOOR PRIZE. This led to the following series of posts in Rex’s blog.

LMS: I never, ever win the DOOR PRIZE, but I’m beyond thrilled when the hygienist gives me my little gift bag. No, really. It’s ridiculous how happy I am with that damn thing.

ME: The goody bag my hygienist gives me contains a tiny “travel-size” thingie of floss, about the size of a medium-sized button. It’s adorable, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never had trouble fitting regular-sized floss into my bag for trips. I showed it to my wife, and, since then, every time I’m packing for a trip I yell out to her, “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to floss while we’re away — I can’t seem to cram the floss into my bag — do you have one of those travel-size flosses?”

The Joker (commenting on my note): Too funny!

Me: Thanks Joker! I’ll be high for six hours from your accolade. That’s how shallow I am.

---

I learned several new words today. First, ZHUZH. To make something more stylish, or attractive. “To zhuzh something up.” Apparently, it’s used often on HGTV.

And, if you can imagine something even more interesting than that: Sockdolager. (That was the clue, and the answer was LULU.) This word plays an extraordinary role in our nation’s history. In the play Lincoln was watching when he was killed (Our American Cousin), the actor Harry Hawk had the line: “Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal — you sockdologizing old man-trap!”

It was known to Booth that that line always got a big laugh. He waited for the line to be read, waited for the laughter to arise, and shot Lincoln at that moment so the sound of the laughter covered the sound of the gunshot.

So the next time you’re at a Will Ferrell movie, be careful.

---

My favorite clue/answer today was: “Second line of a child’s joke,” and the answer was WHO’S THERE? The reference, of course, is to knock-knock jokes. My g’daughter Zoey, who is six, tells this one: Knock Knock. Who’s there? Boo. Boo who? Don’t cry, it’s only a knock-knock joke. (Sort of a pull-back-the-curtain approach.)

When my son Sam was little, he loved knock-knock jokes, but fell just short of getting the hang of constructing them. So in his famous one he’d say Knock knock. I’d say Who’s there? And he’d say: Apple. Does anyone want an apple? It still sends us into gales of laughter, thirty years later.

And my grandson Leon, who is five, has a different take on them. He says: Knock knock. Then I say “Who’s there?, and then he also says “Who’s there?” I usually crack up at that point, but sometimes I say, “Hey, that’s my line!

I’ll just let myself out now — don’t get up.