A Puzzling Situation

For a while, I liked to put together puzzles.  Lots of ocean stuff or Thomas Kinkade or fantasy.  I loved being able to slowly put a picture together.  I’d start with the edges, then, I put it together chunk by chunk.  I end up with an entire fish or a house or a cat, maybe a chunk of coral or the beach or a big dragon head.  I put all these chunks where they should go, then, I fill in the blanks.  You can see it coming together.  It’s just a mess of scattered colors at first, and then you have an entire picture.  And I love that as you put it together, you see every detail in the picture.  A waterfall in the distance, a cat crossing a stone bridge, a person on the beach, the gate to a garden that’s been left open.  It’s like each piece is a magnifying glass showing you something you wouldn’t notice otherwise.

            I like big puzzles the most.  I’ve done 500 piece ones, but I really like the 1,000 piece puzzles.  The more pieces, the greater the challenge, which makes it more fun.  The last one I did was 1,500 pieces, and it was too big for the table, so I put it on the floor, where my cats decided it would be fun to massacre it.  After putting the puzzle’s scattered pieces back together, I left a heavy rug on it.  Stupid cats.  The puzzle’s done now.  They couldn’t thwart my puzzling forever.

            I learned a few things the hard way with puzzles.  Number one, don’t buy those rolly things.  You know, you put the puzzle on this cloth, and then you roll it up when you’re done, and then you can return to it later.  No.  Tried this.  Puzzle.  Destroyed.  Maybe I did it wrong.  Maybe not.  Number two, don’t put together puzzles with that special glue made specifically for putting puzzles together.  You end up with some chunks that stick together, while the rest falls apart.  The best thing to do is use that big, huge clear tape they use to tape boxes closed.  It works awesome.  Then, I can pick up the puzzle, shake it about like a rug, and it stays in one piece.  In summary, don’t use products intended for puzzles.  On puzzles.

            My favorite puzzle ever was this big, gold dragon.  The greatest puzzle in existence, it was.  It was shaped like the dragon rather than a rectangle, and it had designs hidden on it.  Knights and castles and stuff.  And it had pieces with fun shapes.  Somehow a few pieces got loose and escaped, though.  That was a disappointment.  I also love this puzzle I had of a sunken ship, and the puzzle was a circle.  One of the worst puzzles was this cat one.  It was cats and flowers with a white background and was nearly impossible.  I took a long break, and I finally finished it when I came back to it.  But, it was terrible.  Also, as a duckling, I had this awesome dinosaur puzzle.  It had velociraptors because they’re pretty much the best dinosaur ever, and they were in a forest, and I thought the forest looked really neat the way parts were really dark and light shone in others.  It sounds really lame now, though.  I wonder where that puzzle is.

            I have gotten into a lazy streak and no longer puzzle.  I don’t feel like it anymore.  It was fun at the time, but I’m all puzzled out for now.  Maybe someday I’ll put them together again.  Gosh, if only I was there to fix Humpty Dumpty.  Though, I don’t know if I would.  Egg people are creepy.  Sorry to any out there who are or are related to or who know egg people, but that’s just how I feel.  Okay.  I’m getting off topic.  Bye now.

A Puzzled Duck