We had a good laugh in the office this week.

A puzzler had called this week because her puzzle was missing a piece. She was really upset that she could not complete her puzzle. Missing pieces are a rare occurrence, but they do happen. We put something like 5 billion puzzle pieces into boxes each year. One or two is bound to bounce out despite our best efforts.

By the way, no puzzle company likes to talk about missing pieces. But every puzzle company hears from consumers who have missing pieces. We usually ask the folks to try and complete the puzzle first. Often folks are convinced a piece is missing because they can not "find" it while assembling the puzzle. The piece is there. The colors or shape are just different than what they are expecting. As they get to the end of the puzzle they "find" the piece they were looking for.

Anyway, we spoke to the puzzler in the morning and reassured her we would help her out.

Later in the afternoon she called us back. She said she had told her husband about calling us and how happy she was with our customer service. Her husband was quiet for a few minutes and then said he said he needed to admit to something. He had vacuumed up the piece earlier in the week. He saw it go in and decided not to say anything. Our puzzler was calling to say she had gotten the vacuum cleaner and opened the bag. She found the piece (slightly bent, a little dusty, but still usable) and her puzzle was complete.

We all had a good laugh imagining the scene at this house. And we all agreed we too would have cut open the vacuum cleaner bag to retrieve the piece.

I was glad her husband came clean (pun intended) and she was able to finish the puzzle.

JP