More Ranting About Puzzles

To prove my point about puzzles, I'm going to waste another post in order to rant about them because the last one of these got me thinking some more.

(Here's part one in case you missed it)

Perhaps my ultimate awful scenario is putting a puzzle together with someone who does it all the time. Like cupstacking or Monopoly, puzzle-assembling does not have a professional league*, so there is no reason to have someone pretending like he is an expert. I'm sorry, but "look for edge pieces" and "look for all the dark pieces" is not the sage advice think it is. Besides, I'm pretty sure a real pro would find the edge pieces last because it's harder that way**.

* I'm certain it does, but I mean one that doesn't make people sad to watch or couldn't be won by a 12-year old.
**The sad thing is, I'm equally certain there are puzzle purists out there who say that.
 
Then, of course, there's that horrible feeling when the puzzle is almost done and you realize a piece is missing. It's never a fringe piece of to the side either. It's always Gandalf's face or part of the deer drinking from the pond, and there's that deflating feeling. It's like Chess ending right before you take the king, except in puzzles, it's not a victory.

If I get the chance, I like to hide one piece and enjoy the manhunt that follows. Maybe it's the fear of having wasted several hours or simply a desire to see things through to completion, but an unfinished puzzle will turn a house upside down. It starts with, simply, "check under/in the box", quickly moving to "everyone stand up and check under your chair", then it's not long before someone's suggesting shit like, "Check the bathroom. Maybe it fell off the table, got stuck to someone's shoe, flew off the shoe when you were practicing your kick-boxing in there, and landed on the soap dish."

I never understood why puzzle companies don't fuck with people by adding a couple pieces that don't fit to anything. Someone finishes the puzzle with 13 extra pieces, a few of those pieces even fit together, so she stares down the finished product looking for something she missed. I would enjoy that greatly.

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Ok, I think that exhausts my thoughts on puzzles. No. That's not true. Two closing thoughts.

1) Fuck 3-D puzzles. There's no such thing as extreme puzzling. It's just a more elaborate wasted afternoon.

2) It bothers me the puzzle building doesn't translate into a love of putting together furniture, because I have a desk still in the box that I really don't want to put together.