Wednesday, March 9, 2022, Peter Gordon

Well, dear Readers, today's theme answers had me perplexed for a few minutes. However, my reaction to STUDENTIDCARD ("Kid at a college bar who seems, to me as a bouncer, too young to allow in") went from, "Hunh?" to "Ha!" when I inserted an apostrophe, resulting in 'Student I'd card.' LOL. WEREWOLVES (We're wolves) and EGGSHELLPAINT (Egg she'll paint) are also very funny. The C/APs entertained and it's nice that the unapostrophed answers are all also common phrases. Well played.

I got another chuckle out of 15A: "Good name for an ophthalmologist" (IRIS). As I typed that clue, it crossed my mind that a good hobby for an ophthalmologist might be spelling bees. And speaking of Spelling Bee, I was interested to see PULI in today's puzzle ("Dog breed whose coat resembles dreadlocks"). Just the other night, it was the last word Horace and I entered in the Bee. I didn't know Puli was a dog breed - or even a word - but I knew we needed one more four-letter word to reach Queen Bee status so I typed random letter combinations into the app until I chanced upon it.  OLES!

My one trouble spot was at the cross at 52A/D: "Risk territory bordering Siberia" and "Sure-footed pack animals." I played Risk as a youth, but not enough to remember all the territories, apparently. Also, I know zero about baccarat, so I didn't have the K for KING, which didn't help YAKS spring to mind. A run of the Roman alphabet finally cleared that up for me. I also had a short slow down at 56A: "Sponsored boys at baptisms"  (GODSONS) because I was reading 'sponsored' as a verb rather than an adjective. Good one. 

Elsewhere in the puzzle, I enjoyed running the Greek alphabet for "Letter that's only 25% of the way through the Greek alphabet, surprisingly" to get to ZETA. I also liked the C/APs "Hats, so to speak" (ROLES), "Impart, as values" (INSTILL), and "Remain fresh" (KEEP). My favorite was "Number that's often in Italian" (ARIA) - ha! I also liked EXTRUDE and SMUDGE as fill.

I thought WETS for "Licks, maybe" was funny, but also a little bit icky. Similarly, "'Tell me if you recognize me from just my voice and the feel of my hands over your eyes'" for GUESSWHO seemed a bit creepy when described like that, if you ASKS me. 

~Frannie.