Okay, so I wanted to share something I did today. I was working on a crossword puzzle, just the regular one from the newspaper, nothing too wild. I was actually making pretty good time, filling in the squares, feeling pretty smart.
Stuck on One Clue
Then I ran into this one clue. It was something like “Check on” and it needed six letters. I already had the last three letters from other words I’d filled in: _ _ _ N I T. What the heck ends in NIT and means “check on”? My first thought was maybe something about checking for nits, like lice? But that didn’t feel right for a standard puzzle.
I spent a while just staring at it. Tried thinking of synonyms for “check on”.
- Oversee? Doesn’t fit.
- Inspect? Wrong ending.
- Visit? Too short.
I looked at the clue again. “Check on”. Maybe like monitoring something? Keeping an eye on it?
Deciding to Look it Up
I really prefer to work through the puzzle myself, you know? It feels more satisfying. But this clue was holding me up. I couldn’t get the crossing words without it, and frankly, I was getting a bit frustrated. I just wanted to move forward. So, I decided, alright, let’s just check this one.
I pulled out my tablet, the one I usually read news on. Opened up a search engine. I didn’t use any special crossword solver app or anything, just the plain search bar. I typed in the clue itself, like “check on crossword clue 6 letters”. Then I added the letters I had, so it was more like “check on crossword clue _ _ _ N I T”.
Pressed search. Got a bunch of results back. Some were forum discussions, some were those crossword help sites. I scanned through them, looking for a six-letter word ending in NIT that meant “check on”.
Finding the Answer
Pretty quickly, one answer kept popping up: MONITOR. M-O-N-I-T-O-R. Wait, that’s seven letters, not six. Okay, back to the search results. My bad, maybe I miscounted the squares?
Nope, definitely six squares. Let me rethink the clue. “Check on”. Could it be simpler? Maybe check something? What ends in NIT? I looked at my search results again, more carefully this time.
Ah, wait. One site suggested AUDIT. A-U-D-I-T. That’s five letters. Still not right. Hmm. This was tougher than I thought. I refined my search. Just typed “crossword clue _ _ _ NIT 6 letters”.
Scrolling… scrolling… Found a discussion thread where someone asked about a similar clue. One of the replies mentioned VISIT. V-I-S-I-T. Five letters again. Argh. Okay, maybe I got the crossing letters wrong? Let me double-check…
Okay, I checked the down clues again. Yep, they definitely gave me N, I, T at the end. _ _ _ N I T. Six letters total. Means “Check on”.
I decided to try one more search, this time thinking about the phrase “check on” differently. Maybe like checking ON something? Like turning it on? No, that didn’t fit NIT.
What about checking in on someone? Like dropping by? Let’s see… Is there a six-letter word for dropping by? Hmm.
I finally went back to the puzzle itself. Looked real close at the squares, the numbers. Wait a minute… I wasn’t looking at 23 Across. I was looking at 25 Across! And 25 Across didn’t end in NIT at all! It ended in LEY. The clue was “Mountain pass”. Okay, that makes more sense. VALLEY fits perfectly!
So, the whole time I was trying to check the clue for 23 Across (“Check on”, _ _ _N I T), I was actually trying to fit answers into the wrong slot (25 Across). What an idiot!
Lesson Learned
Turns out 23 Across, the actual “Check on” clue ending in NIT, was MONNIT… Just kidding. I looked at the actual 23 Across squares. Six letters. Ending N I T. The answer that finally clicked after staring at that space was TENANT. Like, you check on your tenant. T-E-N-A-N-T. Fits the letters T _ _ N A N T that I actually had from the corrected down clues. Okay, maybe I got those wrong too initially. This puzzle was fighting me!
Anyway. The point is, I went through the whole process of trying to check a clue, got confused by looking at the wrong number, searched online based on bad info, and eventually figured it out by just going back to the puzzle grid and paying more attention. Felt a bit silly, but also relieved I sorted it out. Sometimes the problem isn’t the clue, it’s just me not looking carefully enough!
