Puzzled No More
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Butterfly did it again. 

“Write a letter,” she said.  This time it was about that dadgum puzzle we’d put together that ended up having 2 missing pieces and 2 extra pieces.  After struggling with 1,000 pieces, that was very annoying, to say the least.

I wasn’t quite sure why I had to write the letter.  Were her fingers broken?  Had she run out of paper?  Could she not work her computer?

Then Martha, my sister showed up. 

“Have you written a letter about that puzzle yet?” were the first words out of her mouth.  Apparently it’s in the genes.

Clearly I was going to get no rest until I WROTE THE FREAKING LETTER so I went on-line to find out how to contact Uncle Milton Bradley, the maker of the faulty puzzle.

As you all well know, submitting complaints in the computer age is much easier than it was in the good old days. 

The first thing I discovered was clever Uncle Milt sold out to Hasbro.  Way to secure your retirement, Uncle Milt!

There on the Hasbro’s “contact us” page was a link to file a complaint about any of their products.  This was going to be easier than I’d thought.  Within minutes I’d launched my letter, along with photos of the less-than-perfect puzzle.  Within a few days I received a response that read:

“Thank you for contacting Hasbro, Inc. about your recent Big Ben puzzle purchase.

We were sorry to learn that pieces were missing and duplicated from the puzzle you received.

Unfortunately, due to the enormous amount of puzzle scenes we print every year it is difficult to replace exact pieces.

Since your satisfaction is extremely important to us, we will replace the puzzle for you. The replacement will be shipped to the address you provided.”

Now I had specifically stated in my complaint that I was not interested in getting a replacement to the puzzle that we had had a problem with, that we had no interest in doing that puzzle again.  I forwarded their email to Butterfly, who replied:

“At least they should send you a different puzzle and you better let them know it, before you get the same one back!”

Not one to ever disobey the Butterfly, I promptly emailed the puzzle people and explained again that we had no desire to do the same puzzle a second time, so if they were going to send a puzzle, could it please be a different one?

I’m very happy to be able to report to everyone that this is the puzzle that arrived in the mail last weekend, all 1,000 pieces of it: 

the replacement puzzle

Holy cow!  That’s not a picture I would have chosen!  I predict the gingerbread on the Victorians will drive us insane.  I predict the green hedge will cause blindness. I predict it will take us 6 months to complete this bit of torture.  It will be a while before we can start, though.  We’ve been diverted by a friend who heard about our last disaster and sent along a set of tried and true puzzles. 

tried and true puzzles

There are three puzzles in the box and she guarantees that all the pieces are included because she has put them together.  Butterfly got right down to business.

puzzle #1

She zipped right through the baby puzzle.

work in progress

She’s currently working on the mid-sized puzzle, and complaining a bit about the roof-lines.  Heaven help us when she starts on the final puzzle in the set.  It’s nice to have puzzles that are a bit easier, and that have all their parts about them.