One Piece Missing

It took my wife, with a little help from our younger son, less than three days to knock off a 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzle of the New York City skyline. Personally, I just don't get it, but I've never been much good at solving any type of puzzle.

I guess there could be some satisfaction in making all of the pieces fit together (especially if they don't in your life), but the whole idea of it just makes my ass tight. You start with a mountain of oddly-shaped pieces and then divvy them up into smaller piles by separating the edges from the inside pieces. Most people begin to assemble the border next and then fill in the rest of the picture according to shape and color and it all seems very logical and methodical, and a gigantic waste of fuckin' time.

Whatevs. My wife's obviously getting something out of it because she always calls me to proudly show off her completed work. Or nearly completed, as was the case a few weeks ago. She had just finished Van Gogh's Starry Night, but there was one piece missing. She was sure that our older son had swiped it just to piss her off.

"What's the big deal?" I asked. "What do you get out of this?"

"I don't have to think," she said and then began to break apart Van Gogh's swirling sky.