Alright, let me tell you about this crossword puzzle I tackled the other day. Nothing too crazy, just the usual morning routine with coffee and the newspaper puzzle. I was zipping along pretty good, filling in the easy ones, you know, the across clues mostly.
Then I hit this one down clue. The clue itself was something like “high, maybe dangerously so for operating a vehicle” or words to that effect. It was specifically aiming at that driving context. The answer needed to be eight letters long. My first thought was maybe something obvious, like “impaired” or “drunken”, but neither fit the letter count or the letters I already had in place from the crossing words.
I stared at it for a bit. What else means “high” in a way that’s bad for driving? I had E _ E _ A _ E D. The first E and the third E were solid, coming from other words I was sure about. That middle A also looked right. So, E _ E _ A T E D.
Hitting a Wall
Honestly, I got stuck. I skipped it and worked on the surrounding grid for a while, hoping more crossing letters would just spell it out for me. Got a T in there. E _ E _ A T E D. Still drawing a blank. “High for driving”… maybe something about altitude? Like driving in the mountains? But “elevated” seemed too… plain? Doesn’t quite capture the “dangerously so” part of the clue I remembered.
I put the puzzle down, refilled my coffee. Sometimes stepping away helps. Came back to it. Looked at the clue again. “High… dangerously so for driving”. Then it clicked.
The Breakthrough
It wasn’t about physical height. It was about being high, you know, under the influence. “Elevated” can be a sort of euphemism for being intoxicated or high on something. It fit perfectly with the letters E L E V A T E D. Elevated. High. Bad for driving. Eight letters. Bingo.
- Checked the letters again: E-L-E-V-A-T-E-D.
- Matched the clue: “High” (elevated state) and “dangerously so for driving”.
- Felt that little rush you get when a tricky clue finally makes sense.
It’s funny how sometimes the most straightforward word, “elevated”, can be used in a slightly twisted way for these puzzles. It wasn’t about a raised road or anything physical like I first guessed. Just needed to shift my thinking a bit to the state of the driver. So yeah, that was my little adventure with that specific clue. Got it filled in and finished the rest of the puzzle feeling pretty good about cracking that one.
