Yesterday, workers in the New York Times Guild asked you to break your Wordle streak. On Wednesday, Times union members announced a 24-hour digital picket line for Thursday and asked readers not to cross it while they are on their one-day walkout. 1,100 Times employees walked out after unsuccessfully negotiating with Times management for over a year. Chief among their demands is a corporate minimum wage of $65K. While, this may sound like a lot of money, New York last month was named the most expensive city in the world. I know this, because my son, moved to NYC, because LA just was not expensive enough.

News of this job action was not very well disseminated. I first learned of this digital picket line on Thursday morning from Twitter, after I had already perused the paper. I informed Anne when she got up and she shared the news with her sisters. Jay was already halfway through Wordle when she stopped, and Jane had already completed the puzzle before she first heard of the work stoppage. Later, I did miss using my subscription, when I was fixing dinner and could not access the NYT food app. I think that dinner suffered because of this.

Proceeding now, guilt free usage of the Times has returned. This morning, I again read the Times and Anne again played Wordle and the myriad of other Times games that she likes. My somewhat limited hiatus was no great hardship, Anne, and all her fellow Wordle nerds will see lasting consequences. Their Wordle streaks will be reset to zero, which is a real sacrifice, to hear all the wailing and gnashing of teeth going-on about this via Twitter. I think though that the reset Wordle score will become a badge of honor and a sign of solidarity. Going forward, Wordle streaks that exceed this interruption will be viewed askance and become subject to scorn. A few years ago, who could have conceived of these events?