A. J. Jacobs - Missing Pieces

 

 

All my life, I have loved puzzles, all kinds of puzzles. Crosswords, riddles, mazes, you name it. They are my great nerdy passion. But there is one puzzle that left me cold, jigsaw puzzles. They always seem more like a chore, loading the dishwasher. Plus, I found them anticlimactic. You get to the end, you put in the last piece and you're like, “Oh, look, it's three kittens on a beach towel.” Exactly like the three kittens on the beach towel on the cover of the box that I've been looking at for three days. Surprise. 

 

So, I didn't love jigsaws, which was fine. But then, a couple of years ago, it became a problem, because I am a writer and I signed up to write a book about puzzles. I knew I had to have a chapter on jigsaws. They are the prototypical puzzle. So, I began, as I always do, with Google, and I type in jigsaws and I click and I click. And on the seventh page, there is a very interesting entry. It is the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships. 

 

Now, I did not know that competitive jigsaw puzzling was a thing. It seemed to me the best part of jigsaws was that you could take your time. They were kind of relaxing. So, it seemed a little weird. It seemed like a world series of napping or [audience laughter] a meditation cage match. It didn't make sense to me, but there it was. In a few weeks in a small city in Spain, was the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships. So, on a whim, I fill out the application and I send it and I figure, this is the first in a long series of trials. I'll be weeded out.

 

Next day, my email pings, “Congratulations, Señor Jacobs. You are officially captain of Team USA [audience laughter] and the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships in Spain.” So, my reaction is, “Holly mierda.” This is not good. It's not the Olympics, but still I'm representing my 300 million fellow Americans and I am vastly underqualified. I haven't finished a jigsaw puzzle since I was eight years old. My only skill was I filled out the application and no one else did. 

 

So, first, I need to assemble my team. I had signed up for the four-person event. [audience laughter] So, I walk into our living room, and there's my wife and two of our teenage sons. [audience laughter] And I say, “Who's ready to do their patriotic duty?” [audience laughter] They are less than enthused, but they agree reluctantly as long as they don't have to wear any kind of uniform. I'm like, “No problem. That's fine.” 

 

All right. Next, I need a trainer. So, I call up this woman named Karen Kavett, who has a very popular YouTube channel devoted to jigsaws. And Karen, she's great. She schools me, because I'm like, “Okay, so you start with the edges, right?” And she's like, “Oh, no. Not necessarily. If it's a very colorful puzzle, you start with the colorful inside and work your way out to the edges.” I'm like, “Oh.” [audience laughter] Then I say, “But you always sort by color, right?” She's like, “Not necessarily. Sometimes, if it's a big blue sky, you should sort by shape instead of color.” So, I'm writing this down. I'm like, “This is gold. This is gold. This is going to get me the championship.”

 

So, next, it's time for training. On the next day, me and my son are at the dining room table. I dump all the pieces out. It's a puzzle of a Dr. Seuss painting of a bunch of fish in a lake. So, we're sorting, we're sorting, and I see two pieces that look like they might fit together. So, I take the outie and I put it over the innie, and I press down and I feel that soft click. And I'm like, “Wow, that feels good”. [audience laughter] 

 

So, then I do it again. I see two more and I'm like, “Ooh, some more dopamine.” [audience laughter] And I was like, “These were meant to be together.” In physics in high school, I remember they taught us the second law of thermodynamics that everything tends towards disorder. But here in my apartment, order is having a little victory over chaos, and it feels awesome. I also realize I am an easy convert. I am a cheap date. I hated jigsaws all my life. And here, after 10 minutes, I'm hooked. 

 

A few weeks later, we're on a red eye flight to Madrid. Team USA, that is. [audience laughter] I'm fantasizing like, “Maybe we're the Cinderella story of this.” We're like the 1980 US ice hockey team. Miracle on ice or Miracle on cardboard or whatever they're going to call us. We land, we take a two-hour train ride north and we arrive bleary eyed at the arena. But there is no doubt we're in the right place. There are thousands of jigsaw fanatics, jigsaw tattoos everywhere, jigsaw jewelry, jigsaw themed clothing. I should say here that Team USA is also wearing jigsaw themed T-shirts, which I know I told my kids they wouldn't have to, but this is my first international world championships. How? I'm not going to wear themed T-shirts. 

 

So, I had designed them myself. They were a jigsaw piece with the American flag colors on it. And if that wasn't enough, there was also a motto in Latin that said, “E pluribus unum pectora.” Out of many, one picture. [audience laughter] So, my sons said, “If this appears on your social media, we are going to begin legal emancipation proceedings.” [audience laughter] And I was like, “All right, I get it. You don't love it.” We're shown to our table and we're right next to the Turkish team, which is four women. They have long skirts with a jigsaw pattern. One of them has her hands clasped and her eyes closed, and she's saying a prayer. 

 

I also say a secular prayer, which is that, please don't let us fight over who gets to put in the last piece, which is something we've experienced. My wife, Julie, is doing leg stretches like she's about to run a 5K. [audience laughter] And she's like, “I can't believe how nervous I am.” And I'm like, “I'm nervous too.” My hands are so clammy, I'm worried that the pieces are going to slip through my fingers. The announcer comes on stage and he says, “Okay, here are the rules. You have eight hours to do four puzzles. The puzzles range from 1,000 to 2,000 pieces.” “Oh, thank you for that all.” [audience laughter] Three, two, one, begin puzzling. 

 

So, we grab the first puzzle. It's of a safari scene. I look around, and I'm immediately stressed out. All the other countries, they came prepared. They have their jigsaw equipment. They have razor blades and knives to rip off the plastic on the box, and we got nothing. So, we have to open those boxes with our fingernails like barbarians. [audience laughter] 

 

So, we do it. We pour them out. It becomes clear that the monkey is going to be a problem. It's the same color as the tree. My wife starts trash talking. She's like, “Monkeys, you used to be my favorite animal. Don't make me hate you, monkeys.” [audience laughter] And I love it, because she was reluctant at first, but now she's all in. So much so that she has pledged not to go to the bathroom for the full eight hours, which is unprecedented. [audience laughter] 

 

So, we start making a little headway on the rhinoceros. I spot this piece on the floor, and I pick it up, like that could have been a disaster. So, I'm feeling okay. I look around. I don't feel okay anymore. All the other teams are much farther ahead than we are. And the Bulgarians, their hands are moving so fast, [audience laughter] it looks like I have a video on double speed. But there's nothing-- We can't cheat, because there are dozens of proctors in yellow vests wandering the floor. 

 

One of them takes a special interest in us. He comes over and he starts chanting, “USA, USA, USA.” [audience laughter]. And I'm like, “Gracias. That's our country.” [audience laughter] Maybe, maybe he's cheering us on, but we are so far behind. I'm pretty sure he was mocking us, [audience laughter] which reminded me like, I am in danger of humiliating my country. So, we keep going. 

 

Three and a half hours later, there's a hubbub on the other side of the arena. All these people are crowded around a table. They've got their cell phone cameras out. I say, “What's going on?” And the Bulgarian guy says, “Well, that's the Russian team. They're almost finished.” I'm like, “Finish the first puzzle?” He's like, “No, finish all four puzzles.” It's been three and a half hours, and I had heard before the tournament the Russian jigsaw team was a force to be reckoned with. I know what you're thinking. There's no evidence of doping, [audience laughter] so get that out of your mind. 

 

But a few minutes later, there's an even bigger roar. And four women emerge from the scrum, and three blonde women and one brunette, they've got the Russian flag draped over their shoulders. They bound onto stage. The announcer says, “Champions of El mundo.” And they are beaming. And we are slack jawed. We're like, “How did that happen?” But I say to my sons, “Keep puzzling. It's all we can do. Keep puzzling.”

 

We keep going. But every five minutes, there's another roar. Mexico finishes. Japan finishes. Finally, at six hours and three minutes, Team USA finishes our first puzzle. [audience laughter] Yeah, you clapped a little too early. We finished our first puzzle. It's something. So, we high-five each other. And we grab the second puzzle, which is even harder. It's all red. So, red fingernails and red fire trucks. 

 

Before we know it, the announcer says, “Tres, dos, uno.” Hands away from the table. It's over.” We look at each other, and we shrug and we laugh. My wife goes to the bathroom. [audience laughter] Not there. She runs to the bathroom, I meant to say. [audience laughter] Just a little bit later, they post the results on a TV screen, and I jostle my way to the front to try to see where we are. And I look at it and I look down, and down and a little more down. And there, right near the bottom is Team USA. But this is important. Not at the bottom. 

 

[cheers and applause]

We thank you. Yeah, we beat one of the hometown Spanish teams. So, we were not last. We were second to last. [audience laughter] And to me, that was a huge victory. And coming in second to last wasn't even the best part of that day. The best part was that Team USA was there, we were in the mix in this community of people who were passionate. They were united by their love of uniting little cardboard pieces. 

 

After the tournament, there were hugs. The Turkish women gave us jigsaw shaped cookies. The Russian team gave us a teddy bear, which was their mascot. I know that world politics is very complicated. It can be ugly. The pieces don't always fit. But here in this arena, in a small town in Spain, for just a moment, we transcended that, thanks to jigsaw diplomacy. [audience laughter] So, at that moment, it could not have been clearer that I was wrong. Jigsaws are not a waste of time. Jigsaws are magic. Thank you.