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I wanted the kind of dishes that could be microwaved, frozen, eaten off of, bounced, jostled and slid down the table 9,000 times before showing the least hint of wear, but my mother insisted that I register instead for fine china.
“I won’t use it,” I pointed out, way back in the earliest days of the 1990s, but she assured me that I’d have dozens if not hundreds of chances to use the pricey place settings she matched with a trio of glasses for water and two wines.
Call it a self-fulfilling prophesy if you will, but I’ve used those items less than ten times thus far. They’re far too fragile to be used more than occasionally, and they require the most cautious hand-washing after use. They’ve stayed packed away in difficult to access cabinets and my china hutch, appearing only for a few holiday dinners before my youngest children were born.
They’d use the dishes for frisbees. Of this I have no doubt.
The china hutch itself also has inspired my irrational rancor. It is, in a word, hideous. It’s firmly planted in the “married” section of my mind, and I’ve endeavored for months now to rid myself of all items of a married nature.
Recently I made up my mind to give it away. I scheduled a pickup with the local furniture donation place (tax write-off, w00t), then on a child-free weekend I set out to divest the monstrosity of its contents. It’s no exaggeration to say that the process was like the emptying out of a clown car. I’d forgotten how much fragile crap I owned until seeing it piled along the kitchen counter made me remember the countless boxes sent to me before and after — even well after — the wedding.
It irked me to recall how gleeful I was in the weeks before the wedding, as box after box of china and crystal arrived at my house. I made detailed notes of what I’d received as I wrote my thank you notes, then tallied up the count: five place settings, seven water, eleven red wine, a full dozen white wine glasses.
Parts of the set that weren’t complete immediately after the wedding were given to me by my parents for holiday and birthday gifts over the next few years, until finally, disgusted at being deprived “real” presents (the husband always got the good stuff, while I got yet more ridiculous frippery), I insisted that the set was complete and I needed no more.
What does one do with a set of unused, displaced dishes and enough glasses to make my very own champaign fountain? I could have sold them, but that might have moved my mother even closer to filicide.
Instead I packed them away in specially padded boxes and stashed them in the basement. Maybe someday I’ll use them again. Or maybe in some parallel universe, a Happily Married AAG is setting them out right now for an elegant dinner.
I wish her well.
—–
I keep forgetting to mention that “An Appetizer Before Dinner” was the winnder of our Babeland Swag contest. The story’s author was kind enough to share some of the swag with the author of the second-place story, “Marie’s Secret.” Thanks to everyone who participated and thanks especially to Babeland for letting us celebrate 15 years of sex toys.
Elspeth
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