SURGEON SPECIAL'S WARNING: PUZZLE SOLVING

Ceaseless puzzle solving causes headaches,

tossing-sleepless bedtimes, drowsy mornings,

sometimes also mental hangnails. Wastrels!

Newsgroup junkies squander precious weekends

parsing pointless posers, posting piddling

nuisance nitpicks over shopworn chestnuts:

Sleeping Beauty, hundred cheating husbands,

halfers versus thirders, missing dollar,

sequence puzzles, rarest entry contests,

cloning, Monty, yada yada yada.

Meanwhile, urgent business suffers badly,

valued friendships wither. Answer? Detox!

Habit-forming hobbies mandate action.

Surgeon Special's Special Puzzlers' Clinic

sharply limits patients' keyboard access,

dampens puzzle cravings using "Spoilers",

offers guiltless, wholesome pastime options:

Music! Bowling! Shakespeare! Throwing Frisbees!

Classic movies! Cooking! Many others,

even (shudder) different USENET forums --

poems, physics, Hindi, Beatles, markets,

skiing, condoms... nearly endless choices.

Every single Clinic patient's beaming:

"Johnny Public, *former* addict! :-)"

Daily, even hourly, puzzle users

needn't suffer any longer. Listen:

freedom beckons!

--Noam David Elkies