Puzzle madness

 

A bunch of puzzles started showing up at our library so we started a puzzle swap. This confused a lot of people who thought they had to bring in a puzzle to take a puzzle. This was an understandable misunderstanding, and we probably should have called it something other than a "swap". The first puzzle is on us, at the very least. 

I think a lot of people out there have a ton of puzzles, but they've never had a place they could get rid of them. So we now have many, many puzzles.

I brought a 1500 piece puzzle of an English Manor House with its fronting gardens into the library break room for the staff to work on at their leisure. Everyone was very curious about how long it would take us all to put together this rather large puzzle.

So we put together a pool where people guessed when the puzzle would be finished. Soon my co-workers all got kind of obsessed with this pool. 

The people who guessed a fairly quick and early time for the puzzle to finish started working on the puzzle with great intensity, sacrificing their lunch to try to get it done on schedule. But soon the people who guessed a later time started freaking out and sneaking into the breakroom to take apart sections of the puzzle to slow it down. Mildly barbed words were exchanged. A tussle almost broke out.

Only one of my colleagues remained calm in this whole, heated ordeal. And curiously he had in the pool the latest possible time for the completion of the puzzle. So I said to him "I admire how you alone haven't gotten caught up in all these puzzle fights. What's your secret?"

He looked around and, saying nothing, reached into his pocket, pulled out, and held up before me one, single piece of the puzzle. 

Then he smiled a slight, devilish smile, retuned the last puzzle piece to his pocket once again, and walked away.