Ravensburger (aka Bid Time Return)

JP: So, RT, I guess you’re going to glue me together and frame me?
RT: And where exactly do you think I might hang a gaudy landscape such as you?
JP: You were comfortable enough using me as your dining room centerpiece the last two years!
RT: Covered you up when company came for dinner, if you’ll remember.
JP: One long hot week in July!

I so love the challenge of a new jigsaw puzzle! Have so since memory began…

Ravensburger was grounds for divorce though.

From puzzles, that is.

Well, almost…

We often gift each other with similar, sometimes identical, gifts in my family. Every Christmas counts at least one package with that telltale dry rattle even the youngest among us recognize. Christmas 2004 was no exception.

I honestly can’t remember if I gave anyone a puzzle that Christmas but I do remember discovering the puzzle roll-ups and thinking how convenient that would be now that there were no spare puzzle tables in our lives, now that every flat surface in our homes were needed when setting places at mealtimes for our ever-growing extended family. I bought a puzzle roll-up for Kimberly.

And Kimberly bought a puzzle roll-up for me. A sheet of green felt—generous enough to cover my dining room table, leaves and all. Spacious enough to accommodate, with inches to spare, the 3,000 piece Ravensburger spring azalea scene that came with it. 3,000 pieces!!! I was intrigued. My personal best was 1,500 but I’d had help with that. Could I solo this challenge?

When company left—New Year’s 2005 had dawned—I opened Pandora’s box. Something to while away dull January and February. Surely I’d be done by spring… Not!

The bottle of glue—why puzzles need their own kind I haven’t yet figured—sat on a nearby shelf, undisturbed, all that year. When company came, we ate in other rooms, at other tables, or, sometimes, spread placemats over the few pieces that had found and held fast to their mates.

That Christmas, 2005, I rolled the stillfarfromcomplete puzzle up in its felt shroud, tucked it out of sight in one of the new cabinets purchased for the tuckingoutofsight of noteveryday things. That Christmas, 2005, I had an awful idea, a get-even idea. Kimberly discovered her own 3000-piece Ravensburger Pandora’s box under my tree.

When company left—New Year’s 2006 had dawned—I unrolled the soft green shroud. So much of my work undone in all that rolling and unrolling... By summer, I vowed.

When company came—a week in hot July—we covered blue water, magenta azaleas, a border that had been redone twice over and more until every fit was fitting—with blue linen. Out of sight. Out of mind. Until…

Thanksgiving 2006. So close and yet so far away, that lastpieceinitsplace jubilation. Please! By Christmas? Please!!!

JP: OK, so it’s December 27th. And what of it?
RT: When they told me three pieces were missing, I just had to check on dinner…
JP: Two were cowering under the felt.
RT: I know. I heard. But that last piece???
JP: Can’t remember where they finally found it… Wasn’t my doing, you know.
RT: They saved it for me. Brought their cameras in. Don’t you love the angle of this one?

JP: You look almost gleeful, pretending to be all that young again…
RT: If you could only read my mind…
JP: Thinking where to hang your latest accomplishment, your masterpiece?
RT: Not exactly…………….
JP: I’ve grown accustomed to this room, soft lighting, brocade walls…
RT: Turn back the clock, JP. 3000 bits of priceless time. Time foreverlost…
JP: What then…
RT: Bid time return? scccrrrrruuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnchhhhhhhhh!
JP: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo……