Macho Puzzling

Some families bond over touch football. Others bond while watching football.

Our family bonds over a puzzle board.

As soon as the kids fall into bed, exhausted after a day of running wild with hordes of cousins, the adults clear off the kitchen table, and break out that year's puzzle.

The puzzle theme may be tame, about flowers or puppies, but there is nothing tame about the puzzle trash talk.

They boast. They curse. They insult each other.
"I am the puzzle master."
"You're no puzzle master. You suck. You would be nothing without me."
"What! I've done this whole puzzle by myself you loser! I am carrying this whole thing by myself."
"Dream on."

They hover. They shove each other out of the way. There is no doubt that the masterminds at Ravensburger would be shocked by such macho puzzling.

The same childhood stories and rivalries are rehashed, making us all tear with laughter as the retelling improves with age.

I mostly sit around, laughing with my sister in law at our husbands' antics, gossiping and catching up. Nearby my mother in law stands at the sink, finishing doing the dishes. She jumps into the conversation, adding details to the old stories, reveling in the sounds of boisterous boyish behavior back under her roof for a little while.