My good next-door neighbor, Marty Dubbin, ought to be in the Guinness Book of World Records.
This past winter, she put together a grand total of 42 jigsaw puzzles, each of them 500 pieces. She bested her record of the previous winter – 38. In her lifetime of 70 years and counting, she has likely set more than a thousand puzzles.
I keep telling her she is overdoing it, especially after she told me about a nightmare. She’d dreamed she was trying to put her life back together in the form of puzzle pieces. She struggled to find the right pieces but nothing quite fit.
“Take a break,” I advised. “Those puzzles are even invading your dreams. Find something else to do.”
She scolded me, reminding me she DOES do other things: embroidering dish towels, doing “find-the-word” books, doodling in coloring books, watching TV re-runs.
Marty’s husband, Richard, pops over quite often to visit me.
“What’s Marty up to?” I usually ask.
“Well, whadda YOU think?” he says, sarcastically.
“Lemme think . . . um . . . She’s doing a puzzle?”
“Yup, you got it. A puzzle. Another goldarned puzzle!”
I told him there must be some kind of support group for people suffering from puzzle-itis. Maybe one called Puzzlers Anonymous?
He brightened up at that idea, then urged me to find out and sign Marty up for it.
One day, I suggested his poor wife’s addiction might be caused by faulty genetics. Her sister, Janell, does jig-saw puzzles almost constantly. So does another sister and brother-in-law, Mary Kay and Timmy.
“Faulty genetics?” Richard boomed. “You can say that again! You got that right!”
The other day, I attended a “Jigsaw Puzzle Contest” at the Sartell Community Center to report on that event for this newspaper. Marty gave me two puzzles to give in exchange for two others during the “Puzzle Exchange” that took place before the contest.
“Marty, you should come with,” I suggested.
“Heavens no!” she said. “I’d be a nervous wreck just watching. Setting puzzles is not supposed to be some kind of race. It’s something to take your sweet time doing, not all at once!”
Last Christmas, I bought seven jig-saw puzzles for Marty. When she opened those gifts, one by one, she clutched each one, beaming with joy, happy as a kid in a candy store.
“Oh, I just can’t wait to set these!” she said. Richard rolled his eyes toward the ceiling with a “Lord-help-me” look on his face. Then he cast an accusatory look at me – the puzzle-enabler.
Poor Marty is so addicted to puzzles, she does some of the same ones over and over, year after year. One day I told her that’s cheating.
“Why?” she asked, puzzled.
“Because after doing the same ones over, you know where all the pieces go.”
“Yeah, right!” she scoffed. “Dream on!”
I tease her a lot about her puzzling addiction, but I must admit I myself like to do jig-saw puzzles, one or two a year. Setting a puzzle can be fun on a snowbound day.
Marty loaned me one of the puzzles I’d given her for Christmas. It was a cluttered, too-colorful, old-fashioned kitchen scene – two women and a girl baking, dog on the floor. For days I struggled with it, vowing to just give up. Marty, go figure, saved the day. She’d pop over for conversation at the kitchen table, but each time she would ignore me and fiddle with that puzzle, finding a piece here, a piece there.
“See?” she said. “Take your time, take your time. Never give up on a puzzle.”
With the last piece slapped into place (finally!), I told her to take that dumb thing back home and burn it.
“Oh no!” she said. “I’m gonna do that one again. Next winter.”
