other Washington Post Sunday crossword, September 18 (contains answers)

Cw-050918

Title: Small Change
Theme entries: punny definitions of common phrases, with one word changed to a homonym. What’s interesting is that the homonyms are in pairs, and the pairs are arranged symetrically in the grid, so half the theme entries were really easy once I figured that out.

23A, Clean up a barbecue mishap?: SWEEP STEAKS
25A, Spike in survey results?: POLL VAULT
55A, Escort service’s offer?: MALE ORDERING
85A, Christmas cards in December?: DOMINANT MAIL
116A, Warsaw scarecrow?: STRAW POLE (hee)
118A, Poker attire, perhaps?: STRIP STAKES (I only sort of get this)
40D, Job for Hoffman?: TOOTSIE ROLE
44D, Bake-off winner?: LEADING ROLL

Things I learned, with web links so you can learn them too:

31A, Arabian Sea feeder: Indus
36A, Vaccine pioneer: Sabin (it seems strange that Salk gets all the credit)
83A, Oregon senator Wyden: Ron
7D: 2004 Sarandon movie: Noel
13D, Classic role for Rita: Gilda (I knew this, but I don’t know why I knew it)
106D: Grid great Graham: Otto (this name rang a bell; must be a Cleveland thing)

Overall:
I made no mistakes on this one. I got every square right. This was a cute little theme, and I loved how the clues are paired by position, but I think some of the puns were really stretching it (especially strip stakes). There were 8 theme entries and only 6 things I had to look up.