Puzzle Pet Peeves
In the puzzling honeymoon, everything is great. It’s later when things start to bug you.
As I graduated from puzzles with a few hundred pieces to 1000-plus-piece puzzles (though I still enjoy a quick 300-piece puzzle), I became more particular about puzzling.
Just as I noticed the varying quality of puzzles, I began to pick up on different ways of puzzling – and habits and nuances of puzzling that annoyed me. I know, puzzles should be fun, not frustrating, but on occasion, there are a few pet peeves that bother me. Do these things get to you too?
- Puzzles without a poster. Really? You’re supposed see all the detail in those tiny pictures on the box?
- When the image on the box has a label, sticker or seal on it. Why would a puzzle company obscure the image that you need to see to build the puzzle?
- A poster or box hog. Ever build a puzzle with someone who holds onto the poster or box the entire time and you have to keep asking, “Mind if I take a look at that?”
- Pieces that fit exactly but are wrong.
- Those weird pieces that don’t interlock. I mean every time someone moves a piece the whole thing falls apart, and you can’t wait to find the pieces that go around it so it will stop shifting all over the place.
- Pieces that look like edge pieces but they’re not. Why fool us with a straight-edge that goes in the middle somewhere?
- The worst offender of all: A missing piece(s). OMG! Can you imagine. You spend however many hours assembling a puzzle and then you can’t finish because not all the pieces are there. Enough to make you fall to pieces!
Did I miss any?