Puzzle Trash-Talking

My mom came up for the long weekend, and we pulled out a puzzle to fill the gaps in between playing with my son. We’ve been puzzling together for years now, pushing ourselves to finish a ridiculously difficult puzzle in a very short timeframe. Each time, we’ll both say that we won’t make it, but we always do…even though sometimes it comes down to the wire.

We have a system that works well for us. She starts on the edges, while I pick the hardest part of the puzzle…the sky, the ocean, the grass…and try to knock it out. I learned long ago that most people will save the hard part for last, because they’re intimidated by it. They’re hoping that they’ll have eliminated enough pieces beforehand to have a running start at the hard part. I prefer to face it head on.

Truth be told, I’m weird when it comes to puzzles. If I’m working alone, I won’t put the edges on until the very end. I like the challenge of the free-form chaos, forcing you to beat the puzzle on equal terms.

After she finishes the edge, my mom will pick some other, easily-identifiable part…a castle, or colorful canopy, or people…to work on. She’ll patiently pick away at it, making slow progress, while I am wiping out the hardest and, often times, largest section of the puzzle. When I’m done, I’ll move on to the second hardest part…the trees, or bushes, or something else equally uniform in color.

In my pretend cockiness, I’ll trash-talk my mom at how much more progress I’m making than her. And she’ll dish it right back, saying something like, “You wouldn’t have been able to do that, if I hadn’t grouped all the pieces together for you.” It’s all good-natured fun, and it helps pass the time and make our time more interesting.

Besides, the real race happens when I finish my two large sections, and we layer in my mom’s contribution. My mom excels at filling in the one-off gaps, and she’s constantly finding the exact piece I’ve been looking for for the last ten minutes. She makes up a lot of ground quickly, and this is a major reason why we’re able to squeak by at the eleventh hour.

I love these puzzle sessions with my mom. I’ve been fortunate enough to have done dozens and dozens of puzzle with her through the years, and I always miss it when we don’t get to do one.