NORTHWOOD, NH—Isolated and desperate for a fun new hobby or pastime in the face of social-distancing measures implemented to fight Covid-19, hysterical mobs of violently bored citizens have begun looting puzzle stores across the country, sources confirmed Friday. “People were grabbing up the jigsaws, the crosswords, the sudokus—even climbing over each other to get to the Rubik’s Cubes, if you can believe that,” said Howard Beaman, owner of the now-devastated Piece Time Puzzles, one of several hundred such specialty stores that reportedly had their windows smashed and saw their entire inventories seized by panicked Americans stuck at home and in dire need of a suitable diversion. “Probably did $10,000 of damage to my establishment alone. I watched someone punch an old woman in the throat just to get her hands on a book of riddles. But I’ve always said there’s a real ugly side of humanity that comes out when people are faced with a limited supply of 5,000-piece landscape scenes and decide to turn on one another.” At press time, reports indicated that online resellers were offering 500-piece jigsaw puzzles of cats sleeping on bookshelves for $800 each, plus shipping.

Advertisement