Impossible Puzzle

This morning, at approximately 10:46, I made the worst yet most ironic fifteen dollar purchase of my life.

I bought a puzzle.

After a happy hour turned stomach ache last night, I was fairly certain I would be in a deep coma for a good stretch of the morning - at least until 10. To my surprise, I was wide awake at 8:30, and as much as I tried to force myself back to sleep, it didn't work. I opened the blinds to a grey, damp day and somehow decided that this was the perfect weather in which to walk somewhere.

On days such as this, where I feel the need to just walk somewhere, Somewhere usually turns into Barnes and Noble.

My stomach wasn't ready for coffee, and I was afraid if I went down that road, I might throw up in Barnes and Noble, and this would be Uncool. Yet tea was somehow too weak, so I settled on a chai tea latte and ambled around the store. I picked up a book I'd heard a lot about, as much as I tried to hold off (I have a bad habit of buying new books when I'm still in the middle of reading another. This is usually due to literary apathy - The Lost Symbol has been rather disappointing thus far).

Somehow, after settling with myself that, yes, I would break the rules and buy another book and seeking into the kids' section to find the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series (did not purchase - new cover does not make me happy), I found myself in the games section. I then found myself looking at and considering the purchase of puzzles.

Of these, there were many. Snoopy adorned the cover of one box, and another featured a Thomas Kincaid painting. But I was drawn to a funkier looking box, with some sort of art on the front. Abstract, specifically. And across the bottom was written "Impossible Puzzles." The plural, I'm guessing, indicates there are a variety of these Impossibles somewhere, but here there was only one choice. "Impossible" you say? Oh please. It's a freakin' puzzle. Screw you - you're on.

So I bought it.

And I took it home, and spread out the pieces on my collapsible TV table and went to work. But as I spread out the pieces, I realized that this really would be closer to impossible than I had anticipated. Not only was the art on the puzzle basically the same thing - color, patterns and all - but the pieces were like broken shards of glass, not your typical jigsaw.

Dispondent, I sort of sat there for a while. An eff-my-life moment was looming. Why did I do this to myself?

I suppose I thought I was really going to do something special today by tackling this damn puzzle. And I sort of bought it thinking, well, it's time to put something together. To fix something, to put something broken together, even if it's just these stupid cardboard pieces. At least it's something. Anything.

And I can't even do that.

So the shattered cardboard remains on the floor. I can't even return it, so it's a total loss. Fifteen dollars for shards of cardboard I can't put together. Who pays for something broken?

This guy.