By June Mathews
Since Christmas, the concept of paying for one’s crimes has taken on a whole new meaning for me. I’ve been paying dearly for mine.
Now before you go jumping to any wild conclusions about my moral character, let me quickly say my “crime” was stealing a jigsaw puzzle from my aunt Martha in a cutthroat game of Dirty Santa on Christmas Eve. And to be fair, she stole it from me first. I was just reclaiming what I considered rightfully mine. After all, I was the one who blindly pulled it from the gift pile and went to the trouble of unwrapping it.
When I saw the gift was a jigsaw puzzle, I was thrilled. I hadn’t worked one in years, but I’ve always enjoyed the quiet challenge that turning a bunch of tiny pieces into a whole picture provides. In fact, I’d thought about picking up a puzzle at Walmart a few weeks earlier; I figured it would provide the perfect diversion for me while Jimmie watched all the New Year’s football games. But after wending my way through a chaotic holiday crowd from the garden center clear to the produce section, I realized the toy department would likely be a mess and decided to forego it. So to get a puzzle for Christmas was a delightful surprise indeed.
I particularly liked this jigsaw puzzle because of its round shape and bright tropical colors. So when Martha stole it from me a few minutes later, I was disappointed. On the upside, I got to open another gift, and I’m always up for that. But when an opportunity arose to retrieve the puzzle, I didn’t think twice. I stole it back.
I now realize I should have taken the high road and let her keep it. If I had, she’d be the one with a puzzle piece-littered card table intrusively perched in the middle of her den, and I’d be caught up on my housework. OK, maybe not caught up – I haven’t been to that point with housework since around 1997 – but not quite as far behind as I am now. Working a 1,000-piece puzzle takes a lot of time.
I also would have avoided the addictive effect. On top of all the hours I’ve sat hunched over the card table trying to figure out which tiny chunk of color fits where, I can’t walk through the den without stopping to pore over the pieces and pop a few into place.
I think jigsaw puzzle addiction must run in the family. More than 40 years later, I clearly remember my ailing great-grandmother sitting up in her nursing home bed with a lightweight board on her lap, fiddling with puzzle pieces all day long. An example of her workmanship – a pink floral concoction glued to a sturdy piece of cardboard – hung in my room for several years when I was growing up.
I used to think Grandmother must have surely been bored out of her mind, bedridden with nothing to do but work jigsaw puzzles. I’m now thinking she was probably as hooked on the darn things as I’d be under similar circumstances. I’ve spent far too much time on this one puzzle and can only imagine how obsessed I’d be if I had nothing else to do.
So the next time I pull a jigsaw puzzle out of the gift pile, I should probably insist that Martha take it, not because I’m a nice Dirty Santa player (I’m not), but to keep me from again turning into a bleary-eyed mess and cluttering up the den. More likely, though, I’ll bring it home, set up the card table and start looking for end pieces.
Email June Mathews at jmathews120@charter.net.