Sandbox List Adventure III: Conquering The Angry Birds

$2.99. It only costs $2.99. I didn’t think that something at the end of the CVS aisle would be worthy enough of a high-five moment from my son. But seeing how it involved something called Angry Birds it was on.

For some reason Angry Birds has taken over my life here. That little theme song, forget about it. I hear it every weekend. For some of you that aren’t aware, it’s a game that can be played on an iPhone — A knock-down castles kind of game using slingshots and wingless birds with special destructive powers who are in search for their eggs which evil green piggies have stolen. But seeing how I don’t have an iPhone, I hadn’t been aware of the phenomenon until a few months back when my dude purchased a fancy phone. I’d like to think it’s a game of logic, skill and a little bit of physics. At least that’s what tell myself as a justification for letting him play that particular video game in the car.

But apparently the game has become so popular that they’ve branched out beyond the video game. They’ve got coloring books, pillows, folders, stickers, towels, temporary tattoos, pencils, card games, graham crackers,  and hacky-sack thing-a-ma-jigs. They even have Angry Birds Star Wars. We have all of these either through gifts or purchases of our own, these Angry Birds have crept into every room of the house.

So when my son saw the puzzle, he felt the need to add it to the collection. I felt the need to strongly disagree. But then I realized, he’d been talking about completing a jigsaw puzzle for a long time now. And seeing how this particular puzzle would probably interest him more than a landscape with horses on it, I figured I’d give it a second glance. So I looked at the package. It was small enough. 100 pieces. Might not be too bad.

“You could use a coupon,” he said.

And seeing how I had a CVS bonus reward coupon for five dollars, I thought why not?

I thought we’d be using it for a rainy day. But no, the sun was shining, and it was a cool 65 degrees today. And while his sister was napping he took out the pouch and said it was Angry Bird puzzle time.

The 100-piece portrait of the three Angry Birds and their arch nemeses was waiting. It didn’t seem like much, but once out of the bag, I thought yeah … this may take longer than nap time. I might need a little chocolate for this one.

 

It looked small and innocent enough, but 100 pieces of anything is a lot. No matter what.

 

The Beginning.

 

We found the corners.

 

After a while he was getting a little frustrated that it wasn’t looking like anything. Just a bunch of green and brown background. But then he found the eyes, the beaks, and the piggy noses. And then it was on. The puzzle excitement was on.

 

Then we hit a road block and nothing seemed to fit. But as I stood up to get the baby who had woken up from her nap, my perspective had changed and then a lot more pieces started falling into place. Just like life. I didn’t think I’d get a life lesson reminder while conquering Angry Birds.

 

And now we were getting close … the excitement was building and to my surprise after about an hour he was still very much into the project.

 

And wouldn’t you know it … just as we were about to finish the last piece was missing. Duuuuuude. Do you know what that does to a person like myself. Ugh. The agony. I searched for that piece for about 15 minutes and was victorious when I found it under the couch, where the baby had probably thrown it.

 

Our masterpiece. Hi-fives and juice boxes all around. Another sandbox list adventure complete.