meta 1 minute
hello and welcome to episode #431 of matt gaffney’s weekly crossword contest, “Let’s Talk Business”. as i sometimes do for week 1 puzzles, i didn’t look at the instructions before tackling the meta. there are 4 long theme answers with silly clues:
- {What fans will throw for Ben & Jerry when they pass away?} ICE CREAM FUNERAL.
- {What a die-hard Papa John’s fan might get?} PIZZA TATTOO.
- {That lovely thing calling out letters and numbers?} BINGO BEAUTY.
- {Getting all the money you can out of that Japanese game machine?} PACHINKO MILKING.
i didn’t know what to make of the fourth one, but certainly ice cream, funeral, pizza, tattoo, bingo, and beauty are all words that can precede PARLOR, which is a kind of business, so that’s what i figured the answer was. a little googling revealed that pachinko parlor and milking parlor are, in fact, also things. things i’ve never heard of, but hey. i’m looking through other options in my word list and the options aren’t great. MASSAGE PARLOR feels like a familiar enough phrase, and maybe BETTING PARLOR, but those don’t go together to make a 15.
it turns out the instructions were to find a six-letter word (or a seven-letter word, for some). hey, i hadn’t thought about that, but it’s true: brits and canadians (and whoever else) spell it parlour.
busy morning for me, and i don’t have a lot else to say about this puzzle, so i’ll stop here. how’d you all find this one?
Thanks, Joon — 469 right answers this week. “Massage parlor” felt too sketch to use.
Wow, not only did it take me a long time, I didn’t even realize that the first words in the themers also precede ‘parlor’! Given the timing, I was leaning towards Labor/Labour before solving and until re-counting letters…
Haha, it also took me way longer than it should have for a week one and I didn’t realize that the *second* word could also precede parlor! I only saw that the *first* word could!
Went down way too many rabbit holes before this suddenly became obvious. I love the pachinko reference. My folks had an old one in their den throughout my childhood, and I’m hoping to restore it at my place this fall.