Point of View: Father, I Have Sinned

Min Hefner asked if I’d read the article in The Times’s Sunday Review section about the man who came late in life to tennis and advocated it as an ideal aid in extending one’s life. 

I said I had, but that he had left out the joy attendant in kicking opponents’ butts. I also did crosswords, I told her, to keep my wits sharp, just as my father did, though with all the questions having to do with pop culture and lame puns I find myself often at sea. 

In this respect, I told her I’d recently imagined that I was in a confessional, and that the dialogue went something like this:

“Father, I have sinned.”

“How so, my son?”

“I cheated this morning on the crossword.”

“Oh.”

“That’s it! That was the answer to ‘What is the name of the ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ actress with five straight Emmy nominations?’ ”

“Ah.”

“No. Oh. Sandra Oh. . . . Actually, I cheated twice. I also had to look up the Styx hit that began with ‘Mr.’ ”

“And what was the answer?”

“ ‘Mr. Roboto.’ Father, I don’t know why I do this. Saturday’s puzzle is the week’s hardest. I don’t know anything when I begin it, and, as I said to Mary, my wife, the other day, I don’t know anything when I finish it, yet still I must finish it. If the answers don’t come, I stare at it, stare at it for hours before finally yielding with a what-do-I-care. The problem is that once finished I can say, ‘Now, I can begin my day.’ And if I don’t finish it I can’t begin my day. Many’s the day I’ve not begun.”

“Well, you can begin this one by saying 10 Hail Marys.”

“All right. And, of course, I’ll try my best not to sin again. . . .”

“Yes, but don’t go just yet. What did you say the Styx hit was?”

“ ‘Mr. Roboto.’ ”

“Ah, yes . . . ‘Mr. Roboto.’ ”

“Will that be all?”

“For now, but perhaps you might feel better if you were to unburden yourself more frequently — every Saturday, say.”

Inasmuch as I often write my columns a week ahead, I’m at times overtaken by events, such as happened recently when just after I’d crowed in print that Mike Press and I were riding the crest of a winning streak, and thus gleefully kicking butt at the combined ages of 156, we were taken to the cleaners, a loss that at one point elicited from me an agonizing cri de coeur whose expletives were not deleted until they’d finished resounding throughout E.H.I.T.’s cavernous courts.

And so we were brought back to Earth. Albeit momentarily.