My friend decided to do a crossword today. The drama that ensued inspired me to document his descent into madness. Here are the ten stages of solving a crossword puzzle assuming you were strong enough to make it out alive.

1. You find that you have some time to kill so you decide to start a crossword puzzle.

2. Only 20 words to decode and intertwine into a neat little box. Not even fazed a little.

3. You read the first clue and have no idea what it is even talking about so you move on to the easier clues to boost your confidence.

4. Now all you are left with are the hard clues that make no sense what so ever.

5. You have a stroke of genius and figure out that “a 90s breakfast spin-off” is Urkel-O’s and not Urkelos.

6. Your stroke of genius was short-lived, however, and you realize how many words you do not know.

7. Now you go into the staring phase of the activity where you blankly look at the words at the page and wonder what you were doing during high school English class.

8. The temptation of googling answers is too strong and you end up searching the web with little luck of finding the answer.

9. You end up giving up and swear to never do another cross word puzzle again.

10. You'll probably get bored a few days later and start another crossword puzzle.

The cycle begins again.