It's puzzling

I just threw it away today. The 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle with 999 pieces. I wonder if I had counted them before we started, would I still have started? Well, that is probably pointless mind-wandering because I was the follower and mom was the leader. I didn't start it - she did. My mom loves puzzles - crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, sudoku and other such wastes of good productive time.

It was a rainy Friday evening and we were looking for something to do together. She has a stash of jigsaw puzzles, gifts from children and grandchildren, each one with a story about who gave it, when it was given and how easy or hard it was to assemble. But there was that one box, rather oddly shaped as an oblong octagon. It had a foreboding picture of little vignettes of Bible stories, woven together with water and sky and sand and dessert sand dunes. I know, it sounds weird - it IS weird. It was unopened, standing on end, the seal just waiting to be broken.

"Mom, why have you never done that puzzle?" I so foolishly asked.

“Do you see how many pieces it has?” Mom said with a flirtatious challenge to her voice.

"Shoot we could do that together - no problem." Said I with 5th grade confidence; the only one in the room who had not done a puzzle since 5th grade.

So we cleared the dining room table after supper and by 2:00 a.m. we finally hit the sack – the border complete. Saturday, I learned why I never do puzzles. They are just one more task that MUST be done, no matter what it takes. By noon, still in our jammies, we had another four hours of grueling puzzling under our belts. We were partners – working tirelessly side-by-side, organizing by color and shape, testing, trying and cheering each other’s victories. What a team!

Time stood still, as my husband began to wonder what was for dinner, was I going to do laundry, clean the house, go to the grocery store, get dressed! Thank goodness for frozen pizzas.

My back hurt, my eyes were burning, but I wasn’t going to quit until the task was done. I found out my mom dated my Dad’s best army buddy once – to spite him no less. She was quite popular in high school, didn’t know that either. I finally told her the truth about the clothes I bought on her credit card, she said she already knew.

By 11:00 p.m. we were exhausted and we discovered there was a missing puzzle piece. I am glad I didn’t know that when we started. I would have missed too much – more than just a piece of a puzzle.

Patiently putting the pieces together - K~