Apparently I can't draw straight lines OR count...

THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS!

I am doing totally awesome on my Zelda game. I'm so excited - I'm almost to the final boss!

Then I suddenly come across a puzzle. I think, "No problem! I've completed all the other ones before this!" However, even though the answer seems obvious, it isn't. I try the way I think it should be solved, but it doesn't work. Then I go to more abstract ways, using my items in the most creative ways I can imagine. I even attempt crazy ideas, missions that usually end in my... end. Finally, in complete frustration and desperation, I look up a walkthrough - and discover that I had been doing everything right in the first place. I'd just made one, tiny, miniscule mistake that had thrown everything off, making me go insane trying to decode the impossible riddles of the Zelda world.

So... why the HECK does this happen to ME? Do any other Zelda fans run into this?

I mean, really. I can think of two really recent times this happened, and even old ones.

Like in Wind Waker, the first Zelda game I ever played. At that time, I didn't even know what "walkthrough" was, so I couldn't even try it. When I got stuck on the Forsaken Fortress, I was pretty much stuck there for good. I didn't know ANYTHING about Zelda puzzles, so I didn't know what to do. Turns out the answer was obvious - go into that ONE room that I had always been to afraid to go into!

Also, what about on Spirit Tracks just a little while ago? I had been totally stumped with those riddles, which, actually, I didn't even need. I had been doing it right - find all the statues, then draw lines where their gazes are. Easy, right? Wrong. I drew their gazes all wrong, apparently. I couldn't draw straight lines in the right direction, so I never saw where they met.

Then there's another recent one - Majora's Mask. I said there were five in the tank, but I had six... well, I guess not. I hadn't gotten six. I DID get five. Plus, I discovered a way that I can get back to the eel place, retreiving the final Zora Egg. It taught me the song "New Wave Bossa Nova". I'm not entirely sure what that means, but it got into the Great Bay Temple, so I'm good! The only difference with this one is I figured it out myself, eventually. I DIDN'T look at a walkthrough (congrats to me! :D).

So... lesson to everyone: LEARN TO DRAW LINES AND COUNT RIGHT! Oh, and don't be scared to go into rooms to turn off the one searchlight you had always missed. That one is REALLY important. It got me stuck for an entire year...