The drool hanging out of his mouth was long as Robert’s story about his passion for completing the jigsaw puzzle sets. Feeling hard done by with what had happened, Robert wanted to shed a tear, but his way of living and the fighter in him was not having it, so he came up with another idea when pressured with the challenge of convincing Theo that solving jigsaw puzzles are chic.

“Hmm, what can I do to motivate him?” Robert thought to himself.

Theo stared at him, dead in his face, and this little moment turned into a staring contest between the two divergent thinkers. They made all sorts of wacky faces to come out the victor, such as taking their hands to widen their eyes while sticking out their lips to crossing their eyes, and opening their mouth like a hippo with their tongue hanging out of their mouth.

Then it finally hit him as the light bulb over his head lit up.

“OH!” exclaimed Robert when he glimpsed over in the kitchen from the living room and saw the cupboards. That made him remember a prank or trick you may say that his father had played on him a long time ago.

The prank in question was when his father hid one of the puzzle pieces. Before giving him to complete one of the puzzles off, and this was before his first win.

His father purposely took a long time to solve the set because he knew the victory had already been his.

When Robert had realized that one of the pieces was missing, he said to his father, “I have won by default because a piece is missing.” His father looked into the box, then glanced around the room and replied with, “I do not see any missing piece.”

“Are you blind? There is no puzzle piece in here,” Robert said as he grabbed the puzzle box.

His father began to crack up, and it infuriated Robert even more since he felt that he was about to cross the finish line first and capture his first win. Irritably asking, “Why are you laughing!”

“That is your problem, kid. Not mines.”

“Huh?”

“You took one look at the puzzle set believing that all the pieces will be there, thinking everything was already, you began putting it together. But it’s impossible to finish something that is incomplete right? The listen to take from this is nothing as it seems in life, and things will always be missing. So, it is your job to either keep it incomplete or find what is missing to make it whole.”

“But……... that is unfair.”

“Oh, I have a lot of pieces to put together. You can go take your default win if you want, kid.”

That night Robert looked far and wide for the hidden puzzle piece within the house. He searched tirelessly around the house, turning it upside down. While his father finished his jigsaw puzzle set little by little at a snail pace.

After a great deal of time had passed, his father was one piece away from putting it all together to complete the set. He watched over at Robert and blurted out, “Phew! all this winning is making me thirsty.”

“Hey, kid?”

“Hmph!”

With a massive grin on his face, as he politely asked, “Can you please take the red cup from the cupboard and bring some water for this old man?”

Although Robert was pissed off that he could strangle a cat, he still respected his desires and went for a cup of water. But that did not let his father escape the menacing glares he got while Robert was on his way for the water.

When he opened the cupboard door and lifted the red cup, the little all-so important puzzle piece was. His father blasted out in laugher as he told him to hurry up before he loses the contest yet again.

Robert sprinted with all his might, like Usain Bolt in the hundred meters to his unfinished puzzle. But unlike Bolt, he still lost to his father.

*sips water*

**

"Ah! Good times, I have to bring that up with him next time he calls.” Said Robert, while thinking out loud.

“Mm-hmm, it was……. ah.”

He turned around to witness a Theo who seated upright, taking in every word of the story.

“So, you like it when I am frustrated and now happy, huh?”

Theo started to giggle as he asked him if there were more stories to tell. Robert browed across his brain to locate more puzzle scenarios with his father. Then there it was once again, the light bulb over that head of his.

He strung up, “I got it!”

Robert dashed upstairs as if he had found the last piece of a puzzle set.

“Hold on, I will be right back!” he yelled while running.

Not long after going up the flight of stairs, he came back down at the same pace. He returned with one of his old jigsaw puzzles set, with a portrayal of R2-D2 and C3PO on in the Millennium Falcon on it.

“This one was my favorite growing up, still is, to be honest.”

“Who woulda thunk it?”

“Hey, I thought you were listening to that part of the story, and where did you learn that?”

"Hehe! From Jellymint on Adventure Buddies, and Linus was listening to your story.”

“Anyways, let us put on our Inspector Gadget hats and get cracking.”

Robert threw all of the puzzle pieces on the center table in the living room. When Theo saw all the scattered pieces on the table looking like one big mess, he said, “The puzzle broke.”

Robert chuckles,

“I guess it broke. Well, then we have to fix it if that is the case, right?”

“It seems like too much work, ugh,” Theo said as he fell onto the fluffy carpet.

Here we go again, with like father; like son. As Robert took a similar approach to his old man when he told Theo, “Oh, but I wanted to see the picture of the cool looking robots, oh how amazing those robots are with their robotic bodies. Just so awesome does robots are, huh sigh.”

Theo instantly rose from the carpet and asked, “How amazingly awesome are they?”

Robert, in the most dramatic way ever, put his hand on Theo’s shoulder as he took a deep breath through his nose and exhaled through that same nose and said in a very monotoned voice, “Super amazingly awesome.”

“I want to see the robots, Dada.”

Yes, Theo had fallen right into his trap.

“Let us get to work and puzzle this unpuzzled puzzle. Then

one, as well as the other, sat down together, trying to solve the jigsaw puzzle set as Robert was seated on the couch while Theo stooped on the carpet. They both were parked at their seats for about two hours, occasionally getting up to use the toilet and get beverages from the refrigerator.

Even though Robert could have completed the set in less than five minutes, he left most of the work for Theo to figure it out.

“This one goes here.”

“Nope”

“Here for this one……”

“Nah.”

“And the next one goes right there.”

“Wait……. *chuckles* Unfortunately not.”

"Hmph! This is too hard...ughhhh”

Theo was on the blink of submission as he began to believe that solving the puzzle was getting to be difficult. But being the great father that he is, Robert made an effort to cheer him up by helping him out.

“There are a lot of tips that I can give to you since it’s your first time solving a jigsaw puzzle set.”

*Yay* “Thanks please”

He told Theo how to make use of the end puzzle pieces. By doing this first, you can get the border of the entire set. With this outline, it will make it loads easier to complete the hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle set.

“Is this an end piece?”

“Yep”

His eyes lit up like a Christmas tree on the 25th of December, with the expression “Aah!” coming out his mouth.

“Ya see, it is better to have an outline of things before you begin to do it. Remember what your Mama told you, it is better to work…….”

“Smarter and not harder.”

“Exactly.”

Even though Theo got advised to find the end pieces first and put them together by Robert, he still had a rough time with the set.

Robert glanced at him as he detected that Theo seemed as if he was on the urge of giving up once again. So being as witty as a fox evading a hunter, Robert came up with some other cunning idea to motivate Theo to finish the puzzle.

"Haa! Too bad for the unfixed robots. They have to remain there, forever broken without a brave robotic wizard to assemble them.”

“Huh...”

“How sad it must be for them to endure this mistreated and soon they may be abundant, left it their broken Robo world with nothing to look forward to in the morn, noon and night. How tragic it must feel not knowing if you will never be able to touch your copper arms or not be able to roll on your wheels ever again.”

“I………can be a robotic wizard.”

“How I truly feel broken-hearted for what is their fate. *Exhale* At least I have something in common with my friends R2-D2 and C3PO. How awful that they have to stay like this and endure this type of pain, but oh no no no, I know you, Theodore will rise to the occasion. Ah, what are you doing?”

While deep in the course of his motivational speech, Robert saw him murmuring to stuff Imp. He was at sea with what was happening. He fell down since he was not able to finish his passionate speech.

Theo's response was even more disappointing as he stated, “Yea, Linos said that this whole thing sounds like a drag.”

“Ah…ah WHAT?!”

“How was your first-time solving puzzle sets Dada?”

Being flustered by the questions because, for some strange reason, he was not expecting Theo to ask it, he replied with.

“Well…. urm you know, it was easy peasy lemon squeezy, ha-ha.”

However, what Robert said was actually “a little lie,” he likes to call it. Because the first attempt at solving a jigsaw puzzle set was like watching a tiger trying to cross an ice bridge, it doesn’t look pretty, but you can admire its determination as it accepts the challenge and will do what it has to with all of its might.

He called it stupid countless times and said it made no sense because it does nothing for a person, but every time he had opened his mouth. He picked up another puzzle piece to find out whether it could fit or not. The true essence of the “eye of the tiger.”

Robert was enraptured by robots and any that deals with technology, so the Star Wars puzzle made him excited. That inspired Robert to such a great deal that he went on ahead to study Information Technology in college in the US, and it is where he met his two best friends, Asta Ings and Dilliano Yami.

The place in which the three friends came up with the manufacturing of hi-tech gadgets such as drones, etc. Three of them always tinkered with electronics in their college after classes, so chemistry among them was never an issue. The trio finishes college to establish their own company, taking the first letter in, all of their last names to produce DIY-Tech.

Asta had a nose that could sniff out profits like how a dog can sniff out a buried bone, Dilliano was so good at the wiring that you won’t put it past him to wire an entire building by himself, and Robert was a jack of all trades when it comes to technology.

However, Robert tended to be homesick and miss his parent while being away for a lengthy period.

“Eureka!” suddenly uttered Robert as he jumped up from the couch.

"Eek!”

“Sorry for scaring you, bub….”

Robert had finally come up with the perfect way to let Theo complete the jigsaw puzzle set.

He thought to himself before spouting out the reason to finish the set for Theo.

“There is no way he is not going to bat an eyelid for this one.”

Robert’s confidence in himself was solemnly over the roof as he told Theo, “……. But you do realize that if we do not finish the puzzle set, then our two robot friends won’t be able to go home to their family, right?”

“What Mr. Robert has a family?”

“Oh, for sure. Everyone has a family.”

"Uh oh! Mr. Robot would not be able to go to his Mama and Dada...”

“I’m sorry to tell you this, but no, Mr. Robot won’t get to see them. Sigh...”

He soon got up as if he was on his way to pack up the jigsaw puzzle set and cleverly said, “Oh my, they love their Mama and Dada too.”

That made young and innocent Theo worried about “Mr. Robert” not being able to go home to his mother and father.

“I guess I should put this away………”

“WAIT!!”

“Eh...?”

Theo got up with bright-eyes and bushy-tailed as he declared, “We have an important mission to complete, Captain Dada.”

"Whew, I guess we have a job to do, Commander Theodore.”

Robert had a little victory celebration in his head, silently shouting, “Finally!”