#whoops again

I’ve had 3 copies throughout my life. The first copy my parents bought for me at a Half Price Books, I had to be in second grade at that point bc that was when little sheltered me both: discovered Sonic The Hedgehog for the first time ever, and also started obsessing over sudokus as another form of media I could entertain myself with bc I Was Not allowed to use any technology when I was a kid except for a mini DS with only a single game cartridge, that being a Tinkerbell game of course. The Sonic part isn’t really that important I just remember it was around the same time lol.

I took that 3D Sudoku book with me to a lot of places, maybe not everywhere, but it was definitely a top selection in my Core Childhood Inventory options. Like if everyone had Core Childhood Items like Inside Out’s Core Memories, it would be one of those.

I lost it at some point around maybe 5th-6th grade. And then sometime during high school, genuinely can’t remember which year it could’ve been anywhere between freshman to senior dude, I remembered that 3D Sudoku book, and I got really sad that I couldn’t find it bc it was almost a decade later at that point and it had to be out of print.

Went to that same Half Price Books, found they were still selling a few copies and bought another one. This is around the time when I got my first job as a Barnes & Noble cafe barista, and I would do the sudoku puzzles on my breaks. Quickly after started working at an actual Starbucks, and continued solving the book on my breaks. I found it was a lot easier to put it down to get back to work rather than being in the middle of whatever I was doing on my phone, where I would take a little longer breaks.

Before I transferred from that store to one that was next to the college campus I was going to, I can’t remember specifically which coworker said what, but they said when I would leave they would remember me as “the 3rd dimensional sudoku barista” so I guess that was my thing. And now it’s sorta a thing at all the stores I’ve worked at in the past few years, I’m the person that solves 3D sudokus on my breaks lol.

It’s not significant thing at all, but like all people, it’s become one of those tiny pieces of your identity that are important to only you. Not because it’s like an actual diamond or something, but because it can be like a portal…hub….thingy there’s a cool word that I can’t think of right now but like imagine a doohickey that could place you in some random memory from your past and makes you go like “oh yeah I didn’t really remember this bc it wasn’t like a crucial moment in my life but it certainly is a thing that happened and it’s kinda cool to remember it now”

Idk, uh something something inspirational memories are cool and stuff. Like it’s just cool to think that everyone can have their own Item and it’s like what I just described. Very cool.

Ok wait I remembered where I was going with this ahem So currently I bought a 3rd copy of this exact 3D sudoku book. It took me maybe 4 or 5 years to get through all 326 in my previous copy. I didn’t work on it everyday, just whenever it was convenient and I could relax :)

(Btw it is actually out of print now. I had to buy a copy on eBay that was like $35.)

As I go through this copy, this time I’m making sure to write the day(s) that I’ve worked on that specific puzzle. I’m going through my old copy and just finding a doodles, like hey Puzzle 79 and 80? That’s probably when I started playing Hollow Knight for the first time and ooohp. I see you Puzzle 301. That was definitely around the time I started getting back into Sonic. And uh oh. I guess Puzzle 316 was when my store manager got us all new coffee passports. and I was trying to remember all the “steps” for a coffee tasting ig. Not the coolest page to leave off a specific memory doodle but yknow I’ll take it lol