The Puzzle

I love building jigsaw puzzles, and I'm the kind of guy that sticks with something that works; so I've been working my way through Mega Puzzle's "Hometown" collection of thousand-piecers which feature the art of Heronim (AKA Harry Wysocki -- brother of Charlie Wysocki -- Charlie's puzzles appear under the "Wysocki" label).  Six new puzzles are added to the series every six months or so, and I eagerly grab them from Target or Wal-Mart as soon as they appear.  A few times, when I've built all of the newest puzzles, I've bought older ones on Ebay.  So far, I've completed 36 Hometown Puzzles in all and want to some day use them as wallpaper in my man-cave, floor-to-ceiling. 

Well, here's a funny little puzzle story, and I suspect every reader (and certainly the author) may feel that the story reflects their life at some point. 

I completed one of my Ebay old puzzles and was dismayed to find a single piece missing.  I look everywhere for it and finally decided to buy an identical puzzle from Ebay, then simply sift through the thousand pieces until I found a replacement for my missing piece. 

"Life is good", I thought, as I found the missing piece after only a few minutes into the sifting process. 

Happily, I placed the replacement piece into it's forlorn-looking hole. 

Well . . . maybe life isn't so good after all.  Here's the old puzzle and the new piece:

The new piece doesn't fit.

But I know of a sure-fire way to find the original missing piece:  re-do the puzzle using my second Ebay acquisition.  That will require many hours of labor (and not so fun, at that -- this is a re-do, after all).  When the task is done, the missing piece will certainly materialize, rendering the labor unnecessary.  But before you think me an Eyore, I've already prepared the positive spin -- two completed, identical puzzles (hmm . . . identical except for the geometry of their individual parts) -- one for man cave wallpaper, and the other to give away to a friend.  It's all good.

;-)