This puzzle was created for Ed Hemmy, a 44 year-old office temp who has just gone through a messy divorce from his wife of 18 years, Margot.
Across
1. Where the heart is – like hell!
5. Margot’s way of expressing displeasure
9. I never waved this in Margot’s face – her deposition lied!
13. What some people say we descended from, although, personally, I don’t see it
14. What Margot’s lawyer needs to buy, with “a”
15. Cooking instruction
16. A part of the divorce settlement that I’ll be paying forever: Margot’s _______
17. A foreign car I’ll never be able to afford
18. Guy I can relate to who carried the world on his shoulders
19. My favourite TV programme (at least I can start watching it again, now!)
21. How Margot puts chocolate syrup on ice cream
23. An interjection I’ve really come to hate
24. Margot’s maiden name
25. I’ve heard many – too many
27. George Jetson’s son, et al
31. Arguing with Margot felt like climbing these
34. A good description of the marriage towards the end
37. A legal way of saying to me that I can’t see my kids
38. “Get off my case, ______ favore!”
39. The sound of Margot’s mother
41. Margot’s favourite phrase: “I Get Everything!”
42. What the kids will be if they don’t get more exercise
44. Pre-revolutionary ruler, or how Margot ran the house
45. The thing in my stomach that’s given me an ulcer
46. A type of cultural artifact that I don’t understand
48. A type of food that I don’t understand
50. What Margot could turn the smallest thing into
53. Where I didn’t go for a higher education (unlike Phil van der Loon, the guy she passed up, and do you think she ever let me forget it?)
56. A type of sound…or enemy tactic
59. What it wouldn’t have killed “jeans girl” to wear once in a while
61. One who forces you to turn and face your attackers (do I even need to say it?)
62. I used to say this a lot, even when things weren’t my fault
64. What I do to every test (with “it”)
65. Darryl Latham, the kids’ dentist, for short
66. I don’t get invited to parties where you have to do this
67. Margot furrowed it so often, it’s a wonder it didn’t freeze that way
68. The sound of a snake (or a mother-in-law)
69. Tanks and tubes
70. Lord of the Rings characters I most envy
Down
1. A lie about what I would do to my children
2. Our life together, although I don’t know if it was comic, tragic or soap
3. What I always act like (variation)
4. The Biblical character Margot patterned herself after (as if!), and others
5. Garbage (don’t get me started about her cooking!) transport
6. Margot’s lawyer’s favourite phrase: “I Love Prosecutions!”
7. “Be my ____?” More like Seventh _____!
8. The point I should have stopped at
9. Children need them, no matter what those radical lesbians say
10. Homonym for…aisle (abandon hope all ye who walk down it)
11. What we all do in the television series of our lives
12. A woman I didn’t have an affair with – we just had sex a few times
15. One who fights (I wanted to add “axe,” but it was too long)
20. Ontario Medical Association
22. I like to drink one every now and then, but that doesn’t make me an alcoholic
24. Walk tall, walk proud
26. Do I ever wanna get back with my ex?
28. Of the ear
29. Bear or Berra
30. Cops claimed I did this (six times), but I say their radar was faulty
31. Each
32. Wife’s lawyer…aww, who am I kidding? Any lawyer
33. What you do before surgery or testimony
35. A group to which I never belonged (not that I wanted to, but Margot was more than a little obsessed by them)
36. Times of ultimate battle
39. I never called the kids this, and, if I did, I meant it with love
40. Period of time
43. The issues that I couldn’t argue about (which, towards the end, was all of them)
45. What Margot would do with motives
47. Okay, I had an affair with this woman, but I knew it was wrong, so I broke it off after three years…four years tops!
49. My name
51. Derisive sound you’d best believe I never want to hear again
52. The most appropriate answer to “You do not!”
54. Fabrizia, the new love of my life, says I never do this
55. Rude sounding tie
56. I don’t know where I got them from, but I swear I never gave any to Margot
57. They have .edus and .coms (but never .xxxs)
58. Kind of wines Margot forced me to drink even though I detest them
59. Rude sounding snakes
60. How a woman (other than Margot) deals with torn clothes
63. Margot used to hate this style of MMORPG play, even though it rocks