Alternative crosswords

I like pizza. Won't make any bones about it. Pizza is one of the major food groups. So when the whole family visited my mom on the Friday before Christmas, we decided to stop at a Pizza Hut for supper.

Now if your Pizza Hut is like our Pizza Hut, the placemats have factual info about Pizza Hut on one side and kids' games on the other. This time, mine was "Zoo-Logical" with the theme about, well, zoos. I mean, what would you expect?

This one had a crossword puzzle, which I sought to complete with the aid and suggestions of everyone else. The crossword is oriented to little kids, but I figure I had to come up with some alternate answers and see where that leads to.

OK, here we go.

1 across: "an animal is kept in this." Four letters. Pretty easy: "BARN." I wrote in the letters.

2 down: "what you see at the zoo." Seven letters: A------, including the A from BARN. We thought and thought and decided to move on.

3 across: "a big cat with stripes." Five letters. We thought, and then I think my wife came up with the answer: "TABBY." The pen went to work. Some of those tabbies, you know, can get pretty big.

4 down: "King Kong was one." Seven letters: B------, with the B from TABBY. Let's see. What describes King Kong in seven letters starting with a B. I got it! "BIGSTAR."

5 across: "he eats bananas." Six letters. We were stumped. We knew it had to be some kind of monkey, but what? David, who knows his video games, solved it: "DONKEY." Remember Donkey Kong from video game fame? Of course!

6 down: "they have trunks." Nine letters: E--------, with the E from DONKEY. I was stumped again, but not my wife. "EMIGRANTS," she said. (She later explained that she was inspired by a book she was reading.) Anyway, it fit, so another clue was solved.

9 across: "a zebra has these." Seven letters: S------, borrowing the S from EMIGRANTS. It was hard to come up with the subtle correct answer for this one. I finally wrote down "SUNBURN." (Forget the "this/these" matter.) Remember the old joke? Q: What's black, white and red all over? A: A sunburned zebra.

We had skipped a few, so we went back:

7 across: "what the animals look at." Six letters: -I--T-. That's the I from EMIGRANTS and the T from BIGSTAR. This also took some thought. At last, I got an acceptable answer: LIGHTS. Don't they always look at the lights? Anyway, it fit. The pizza would be coming in just a few minutes, so I wasn't about to quibble.

8 across: "a lion does this." Five letters: --A--. Hmm, what do lions do in five letters with an A in the middle? I thought back to all those nature documentaries. So did my wife, I guess, for she came up with the answer: STALK. You bet they do!

That left only one clue unsolved:

2 down: "what you see at the zoo." Seven letters. Thanks to BARN and DONKEY, now it reads A--D---. I had to think fast. The waitress was fussing with a pizza nearby. Time is running out. What do I always see when I'm visiting the zoo? Then the lightbulb flashed on, and I triumphantly wrote APEDUNG.

Finished! We did it! We solved the crossword! Not exactly the level of the New York Times crossword, but we were proud of our accomplishment.

And if you don't believe me, here is proof positive: