"absolute disaster"

Especially when smug guests of the gardenry persuasion were present, I would wonder aloud to my mother why on earth anyone would want to turn a pastime they themselves enjoyed into an innocent other's object of complete loathing?

"It's just a fucking hobby," I'd hiss, as I danced attendance on the same old simper-fi brigade ... "Like making jigsaws or knitting ... candle and soap making ... strumming the guitar, even."

Some ignorama once pointed over to a vase of plantiness and asked, "What? You don't find those a thing of beauty?"

"That," I hissed, "is not gardening. I'm talking about ramming someone's head down your hobby and when he's finally allowed to come up for air, expecting him to admire the curve of the porcelain, the choice of typeface for the Thos. Crapper maker's name."

Just a piddling frigging hobby - like origami or stamps - a pleasant way to pass time when the hours grow heavy - your time, not bend the ear and back of every non-believer unlucky enough to swim into ones ken.

I was reminded of those vile and ser-vile days on the treadmill by this story of the collapsed jigsaw: terrible story, tho' I gave a heartless guffaw on first reading.

40,000-piece jigsaw puzzle created for a world record attempt ... collapsed. Watch how it folds. "Absolute disaster."

That was the sort of thing I pictured as I went about the futile toil on my mother's hobby.