Puzzles are a cruisy exercise for the eyes and brain. They’re different to say, Monopoly or Scrabble, because puzzles don’t quite tickle the little competitive bits in me that turn adored partners and siblings into stupid pelicans who don’t know how to play a game.
Puzzles are a mostly joyful activity and I love them dearly. I do not, however, love the sometimes unavoidable Puzzle Rage. It’s what you feel when you stare at a silly, silly piece of cardboard that doesn’t seem to want to fit in, despite that being its entire point of existence.
I blame Puzzle Rage wholly on the type of puzzle piece. Anybody with a brain knows the sweet ecstasy of finding all four corner pieces or the beautiful edge pieces. These little bits carry a certain LET’S-GET-THIS-SHIT-DONE energy to them that you can feel in your toes no matter how drunk / high you are.
So to celebrate the humble puzzle, here’s all the different types of puzzle pieces ranked.
Visual coming in hot:
Credit: iStock
8. The basic regular pieces
Right, these meh pieces have two knobs (???) and two holes (???). I don’t know what the actual words are for these thingies, but you know what I’m talking about. They make up most of the puzzle and aren’t as easily noticeable as your corner pieces or one of those random cut ones.
There is the vertical meh piece, which is pictured above. And then there is its horizontal counterpart, which looks like a mutated ‘H’. These pieces will haunt you every second of every hour of every day you labour over the puzzle.
These pieces especially suck because you’ll think you’ve found ~ the one ~ but NOPE, it’s just another meh piece that looks exactly like every other meh piece in the bloody puzzle.
AND, if you lose one of these basic bitches, you won’t notice until the very end, which is why these puzzle pieces suck ass the most.
7. Random cut #4
Too many knobs.
Knobs get squashed or bent, dog can rip one knob off, don’t like them. Hate them.
6. Random cut #3
Same reason here, just one less knob. Still a knob, though.
5. Random cut #2
A meh piece disguised as a random cut.
4. Random cut #1
I just like the look of this one! Bit of this, bit of that!
3. All the edge pieces
The edge pieces break all the rules, because even if an edge piece has too many knobs on it, it is still an edge piece and therefore sacred in my eyes.
Putting together the border is like the first thing you do in a puzzle. It’s pre’s before a night out, the warm-up before a game, the spicy entrée – puzzle foreplay if you will.
They can do no wrong!
2. All the beautiful corner pieces
Yes, I did just trick you into thinking corner pieces were going to be first. FOOLS. Now as much as I love a good corner piece, that divine satisfaction of finding them is short-lived. They are, after all, just four pieces of the puzzle.
They may be some of the most important ones, but they’re also a) the first ones you find and b) the easiest to find. So once you whack those four pieces down, that’s it! You’re done, you don’t think about them again until the very end.
And that is why they come in second place.
1. Random cut #5
This is the absolute opposite of the meh piece, because it has four bloody holes. I honestly haven’t come across many of these weird pieces before, which is part of the appeal. Even when I do, there aren’t that many of them in the box, so when I do find them it’s like a burst of energy during a dry spell of meh pieces. Why? Because they are so distinct in shape there’s a very good chance you’ll find its place in the puzzle.
AND, they kind of look like non-threatening Chinese throwing stars. Y’know, those flat metal thingies people killed each other with back in the day? Good stuff.
So there you have it, the types of puzzle pieces ranked.
However, after *completing a puzzle recently I would like to point out that the actual worst type of puzzle piece IS THE MISSING PUZZLE PIECE.
I’m so upset.
*puzzle not completed.
