Yeah, I Have a Hobby: Puzzles.

I like love am obsessed with puzzles. And I'm not talking about your regular 1000 or 2000 piece puzzles, even though those are cool. I'm talking about puzzles that take up half my bedroom floor, puzzles that cover my dining room table entirely so that my roommates can't eat on it, puzzles that are so big that they fill my dreams when I'm not putting them together. You get the gist right?

One time I put together a 5000 piece puzzle and once I was done, I painted over it with two coats of black paint, let it dry, took it apart and redid it. It was difficult and I only finished three-fourths of it, BUT IT WAS FUN.

A few years ago, I bought this puzzle:
It was my first photomosaic puzzle and I was having the time of my life with it.

I had sprawled myself on my then boyfriend's bedroom floor, putting it together, while he was doing something unimportant. He turned to me and said something (I don't recall what) that put me in a foul mood. As the day progressed, he kept nagging me. All I remember was feeling annoyed and wishing I could have started the puzzle in my dorm instead of his place. And suddenly I broke. I'd had enough. Couldn't he see I was in the middle of something?!

I took the entire puzzle and crumbled it up. Pretty much like this:
He got mad at me. "You spent so much time on that! Why'd you ruin it? Did you really have to? Geez!!"

Man, whatdahails bro? FUH-REELZ YOU DON'T KNOW WHY I'M SO UPSET?

By the time I realized what I'd done, the puzzle was already completely destroyed. All 1,000 pieces of it. Unconnected and mixed up among one another. Sadness consumed the anger that previously filled my body. All the time and effort spent putting together that puzzle...wasted. Now what was I going to do?

I got up and went to make a sammich. It seemed like the only reasonable thing to do. I mean, I was probably cranky because I hadn't had anything to eat. When I came back, he had picked up the pieces and put them back in the box. He apologized and the world kept spinning.

Oh This? This Is Made Out of Girlfriend Material.

Recently, while out with my friends one night, I felt a tug on my skirt. I turned around and glared at the back of my skirt where the perpetrator’s hand had lodged itself. “Sorry! I just...I just wanted to feel it. I wanted to know what kind of material this was,” he stuttered.

I violently pulled my skirt back to my body and let my eyes travel up his arm to his face. And boom! There he was. My anger immediately dissipated. I had expected the person to be a creepy, overly obese, hairy guy ridden with yellow fever paired with an obsession for women’s clothing but it wasn’t.

He was unconventionally handsome, in so much of a way that I wouldn’t be able to take my eyes off him even if you gouged my eyeballs out. I was still creeped out and a little peeved but I did a double take, then a triple, then I just forfeited by pride and stared. Yep, still handsome.

In a fit of sudden adrenaline and fear, I blurted out, “Oh this...this is made out of girlfriend material.” We locked eyes. I expected him to throw himself at me, I mean—I just did. Plus, he totally set himself up for that and I thought it was such a great comeback. But nothing, he did nothing. Nothing.

Then, in a weak attempt to not appear desperate, I blurted out in an even more frenzied panic than my sad excuse of a pick up line, “...It’s just wool. Here.” I offered my skirt to him but he just shook his head and walked away. Is this how guys feel after getting rejected? Ugh, no wonder so many of them believe it’s a numbers game.

Hey! I tried, alright!? Can’t I live?!

One can argue that pick up lines are unoriginal and for the inexperienced and maybe they’re right, but let’s be real: when you’re trying to talk to a girl and you have absolutely nothing to go on, the best way to get her attention is to make her laugh. For me, it’s pick up lines. I’m a total sucker for pick up lines. Cheesy ones, nerdy ones, even douchey ones. I love them all. I can’t explain it. There’s something about the ridiculousness of pick up lines that makes me laugh, and that’s all I want: to have a good time when I’m out.