Monday, November 13, 2023

My wife is a puzzle person. I am not.


Terry recently completed a 2,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, and I can only assume she used some sort of voodoo magic to do it.

Never, not in a million years or for a million dollars, could I do a 2,000-piece puzzle. While we're at it, I should mention that 1,000, 500, 250, 200 and even 100 pieces are also out of the question for me.

One time, as a test, Terry gave me a 25-piece puzzle to complete, just to determine exactly how inept I am. Let the record show I did eventually get those 25 pieces to fit together, but I'm embarrassed to say how long I needed to complete the task.

It should take a reasonably intelligent adult 2 minutes  maybe  to do a 25-piece puzzle. It took me longer than 2 minutes. One might say "considerably" longer.

My complete lack of spatial sense and awareness prevents me from ever being a puzzle guy. Which is too bad, really, given how much fun puzzle people seem to have.

I know you're supposed to pull out the border pieces and put those together first, but...well, even with a straightforward, time-consuming, trial-and-error approach, I just can't visualize how connecting pieces are supposed to join up. I can't look at the knob on one piece and easily see how it fits into the slot on another.

It's just not how my brain works, which is one of many reasons I didn't choose carpenter or engineer as my profession.

As you might suspect, this mental shortcoming also makes it difficult to put together even the simplest home furniture or children's toys. Don't get me wrong, I get the job done. But you wouldn't believe the time and effort it takes for me to understand exactly how Tab A fits into Slot B.

On the other hand, I am masterful in my use of semicolons. They're about as practical these days as jigsaw puzzles, though, so maybe I shouldn't go around bragging.

2 comments:

  1. Yet not one semi-colon in this post!

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    Replies
    1. Haha, I tend to avoid sentence constructions that require them, but I'm ready when the time comes!

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