GROUP CROSSWORD

I was walking into the kitchen, ready to make my morning cup of tea, when I noticed the newspaper crossword puzzle laying on the kitchen table. There were several blank spots to be filled in so, I sat down and got right to work.

Twenty minutes later my son Alex walked in.

“What's a four letter word for cat's lives?” I asked.

“Don't they have nine?” he said, walking over to the cabinet to get out a box of cereal.

I shook my head. “I should have known that.” I took my pencil and filled in the blanks, then moved to the next clue. “Part of SWAK.” I said as I got up to finally get my cup of tea.

Alex took the newspaper from me. “How many letters?” he asked.

“Four.” I took the tea bag from the canister and placed it in my cup, waiting for the water to boil.

“That would be kiss.” he said, picking up the pencil and filling in the boxes.

I filled my cup with boiling water and headed back to the table.

That's when my husband, Steven walked into the room. “What are you two up to?” he asked.

It was then that I realized we'd been working on his puzzle. “I'm sorry.” I said as I looked over at Alex who was still filling in the boxes.

Alex looked up, “Wait a minute. Mom didn't tell me this was your puzzle. She was working on it when I came in!” He looked over at me then back to Steven before pushing the paper away from him.

“Thanks for giving me up so quickly!” I laughed. I looked over at Steven. “I'm really sorry. But I did my part in pencil so I can erase it in a second and you'll never know the difference.”

Steven started to laugh. “It's fine. I'm not that kind of crossword puzzle solver.”

“You're not?” I looked down at the puzzle. “But you've done your section in pen.”

“I always use pen.” He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down at the table, looking over the section Alex and I had done.

“I could never us a pen.” I admitted. “What if I made a mistake?”

“You just have to be sure of yourself.” Steven said looking over at me. “It's the difference between people who use paper clips and people who use staplers.”

I thought about that for a moment, before I realized what he was saying. “Oh my gosh, I always use paper clips!”

Steven smiled as he picked up his pen. “And I use a stapler.”