Wizard ate Washington

There are many reasons I love buying things that don’t cost a lot.  Here’s one of them: when something breaks (and things inevitably break, or fall apart, or get left out in the rain), it hurts just slightly less when you’ve paid $5 for it, as opposed to $50.

(Though to be honest, I still hate it when things break.  I get attached to things, cheap or not.  It’s never been the value of things that make them valuable to me.)

My son KNOWS it makes me crazy when he’ll lose something and say, “Oh well, who cares?  You got it for free anyway.”  Getting it for free was not the point!  We need to be responsible!  (Do I sound like your mom too?)

I found this great puzzle a couple of years ago at Goodwill for $3.  (These sell for much more on ebay.)

After we adopted a fifteen-year-old boy from Colombia, I wanted him to learn the United States, so I made him do this puzzle every day for a while.  (I’m not going to lie – the west takes me just a little bit longer.  I needed the puzzle too.)

Have you noticed anything missing?  When I bought it, the puzzle had all 50 states.

Until somehow my puppy, Wizard, got a hold of it.

He ate the state of Washington, and I still haven’t forgiven him.  It’s a very good thing he’s cute.  (Fortunately I was able to catch him before he made it to Oregon.)

Oh well, who cares, right?  It was a good thing it only cost $3.