Saturday, January 26, 2013

Nice Things

What would be the point of living if we didn't let life change us? - Mr. Carson (Downton Abbey)

I must have been around twelve or thirteen when I was out at a store with my mother and they had cool plastic mugs on super-sale. I think they were four mugs for one dollar. That is a quarter a mug! For reasons I don't understand, I fixated on these mugs and convincing my mother we should get them. For reasons I don't under she gave in and bought them.

That investment paid off. All the time when my friends came over throughout high school I had them use the plastic mugs. Why? You can break the plastic mugs. I remember a time when one of my brother's friends broke one of the glasses and I said, "my friends haven't broken any of the plastic mugs yet!"

When I got my first apartment after university, my mother gave me the mugs to take--along with all her plastic dishes. I took them with great pleasure! She also gave me a bunch of glassware that she didn't have a complete set for any more. A decade later many of the glasses were broken, but the plastic mugs were still going strong. Every time a friends breaks one of my glasses I say, "this is why I can't have nice things!"

I moved into an apartment with two friends and are cabinets were overflowing with dishes. It was suggested that we get rid of the plastic mugs and just stick with the nicer dishes. I fought back - and over the next five years I watched as the nice dishes broke and my plastic mugs came into greater and greater use.

I got married and we combined our kitchens and my plastic mugs lived on. They are "raised" so that there's a couple inches of plastic at the bottom which keeps them from sweating and damaging the surface they are one. They don't need coasters! Mrs.Chaos admitted at one point that she liked them.

We had already gotten rid of all my plastic plates and now we just acquired new really nice plates. As Mrs.Chaos cleaned out all the dishes we no longer need she put the plastic mugs back out. They are on the chopping block! Will they find their way back into the cabinets? Or have they finally been voted off the island?!?