Pick up the pieces

My mother loved jigsaw puzzles. She preferred big ones — 2,000 or 2,500 pieces, which aren’t easy to find. She welcomed help; when my siblings and I were living at home, or later when we came for a visit, if she was working on one she’d happily invite us to sit down and take part.

It had been years since I’d worked an actual, physical jigsaw puzzle. In the early days of the lockdown, I saw stories about jigsaw puzzles making a comeback, and selling out at many stores. Of course, I continued to go to work each day, and so the lockdown didn’t affect me the way it affected some. So I didn’t rush out and get one right away. But I did look a few times online — and, as you know, once you shop for something online, it starts popping up in your online ads.

Anyway, yesterday, while I was getting something else at Dollar General, I went to the toy aisle just to see if they had any jigsaw puzzles. I found a 1,000 piece puzzle that would just barely fit on my coffee table.

That meant, of course, that I had to clean off my coffee table, which — like most of my apartment — was a disaster area. I pulled a bunch of stuff off the coffee table, threw away wwhat I didn’t need any more and piled the rest into a plastic tub.

I set to work on the puzzle last night. Early on, while sorting through the pieces, I spilled some of them in a way that scattered them around a corner of the living room. I think I found all of them but won’t know for sure until the puzzle is finished.