Puzzles and The Thermonuclear Threat

There comes a time in every man's life where they realize that their parents are all grown up. My Mom had me young and therefore has been close in age range most of my life which has brought great advantages like Hipper clothes than the other kids' Mom's got them, and watching Texas Chansaw Massacre when I was thirteen. However there comes a time when all parents must grow up. I recognized one of the signs this weekend while in Dayton for the Easter weekend. My Mom showed me a puzzle she had just bought. Evidently mom has been putting together puzzles, which I do not approve of.

Two things I really hate, Puzzles and Crossword Puzzles. They seem to me to be the most useless acts man can engage in. We've taken millions of years to evolve the cerebral cortex to an unprecedented ungenuity producing machine and this is where most of that evolutionary effort goes? I mean, come on, is there really NOTHING else to do? Is there no other act you can engage in which might further your life in some meaningful way? No? Nothing? What's that? Oh, no, I don't know a three letter word for a flightless fowl. I guess I'll just have to live with that. I suppose Crossword Puzzles could be defended because they make you think more than word-find, but they also make you avoid so many more worthwile thoughts. I guess if you got all your fruitful ventures for the day done, then go for it. I just don't think that's the case with most puzzle people.

But the offense was twofold for my Mom. It was indicative of wasting time AND becoming an old lady. Old People do puzzles, not Mom, not now, maybe in twenty years, but not now. So I told her of how dissapointed I was and I think it was a very good talk. She defended her pursuit by saying that she thought the image that the puzzle would form was very pretty and that perhaps it would look good framed. I blew up and told her now she was acting like and eighty year old and that if she framed it I would have trouble throwing it away when she dies, and I would have to hang the damn thing up, so I begged her not to frame it.

Then my Step-Father joined the conversation laughing the way he does when I crystallize a thought on some Mom nonsense that he's been putting up with but has been unable to call her out on. He told me how the last puzzle went, it was the answer to a question that was going on in the back of my head anyway: Yeah, how does Mom with her lack of patience complete a puzzle? Well, evidently, the last one was a disaster, a lot of yelling and frustration and I believe the table was cleared in a single armswipe when she finished the puzzle but was missing one last piece. After the fiasco had blown over they found the piece chewed up in her Fox Terrier's poop.

Hopefully this will be the end of this puzzle nonsense.

(yeah, I know, no Thermonuclear threat was mentioned in the above piece, I was just looking for more exciting titles)