CORUC = OCCUR

SUYFS = FUSSY

SLONES = LESSON

MUMENI = IMMUNE

CARTOON ANSWER:

THE TRACTOR-TRAILER DRIVER DID OK FOR HIMSELF AND WAS – – –

CCUFSSLESSIMUE = SEMI-SUCCESSFUL

Good morning Jumble players, and happy Saturday! David and Jeff usually keep the challenge to a minimum with the Saturday version of the game but that wasn’t the case today. The puzzle featured a couple of great anagrams and an enormous 14-letter surprise answer that I’m sure left a few of you scratching your heads.

Starting from the top, OCCUR was well laid out and turned out to be my runner-up pick for the most difficult anagram of the day. By placing a “C” on both ends of the Jumble kept me from seeing the word a little longer than if they were closer together. FUSSY wasn’t demanding in the least. By placing the Y at the end of the word brought the rest quickly into view. Now SLONES was a fantastic Jumble and my pick for the most difficult of the bunch. I know we’ve seen it recently but it’s one of those words that always tricks me. The way that I solved this one was by noticing the placement of the S’s. As with OCCUR, the consonants were on either side of the layout which led me to join them up bringing the answer into view. Lastly we had IMMUNE which only took a quick glance to decipher.

Today’s cartoon brings us to a truck stop where we see a couple of men having a conversation. The man on the left sure fits the look of a trucker with his rolled up shirt sleeves, long hair in a ponytail, and pork chop sideburns. Did you notice the circled “J”on the front of his trucker hat? The J stands for Jumble and it’s a fun detail that Jeff places on his characters clothing from time to time. The man on the right has a cleaner look with a neatly trimmed mustache and a thinner overall figure. He also has something on his hat but it was just too small for me to make out. His ginormous “Joe To Go” coffee container was a nice touch but he had another detail that you may have overlooked. Take a peek at his waistline and you’ll see that Jeff added a chain that goes from his belt loop to his wallet. Subtle and sneaky!

All of this extra detail had my head spinning, and we haven’t even discussed the trucks yet! For the sake of brevity I’ll just point out the details rather than talk about each one. There were flames on the engine compartment, dice on the rear view mirror, and spikes on the wheels. My favorite detail of the cartoon was the sign in the top left corner. It say’s “Eat Food, Get Gas” which is a bit crude but a fact of life.

As previously mentioned, the solution would be 14-letters long with a hyphen thrown in for added fun. It took a lot of staring at this one to find a place to start which was the frustrating part. After a minute or two of thinking about random trucker words, I opted to focus on the abundance of C’s and S’s instead. With them being so close to the U, it brought SUCCESS to mind. I noticed the FUL next which would extend the word making it fit neatly into the 10-letter position. SEMI was quickly deciphered making for a challenging yet satisfying finish. Have a super Saturday, and I’ll see you tomorrow!