Barbara: Maybe it’s the weird energy Deb noted the other day. Maybe it’s the sad state of my kitchen cupboards that we’ve been meaning to renovate for 13 years and have yet to do. But lately our dishes have shown an unusual propensity for jumping out of fingers, from dishwashers, and off tables. And dying. Smashing to the floor and lying there, just pieces of their former selves. Dead. Morte. Tot. Finito.
Twenty-two years ago, we got a lovely set of “casual dining” dishes from my mother as a wedding present. The dishes have done their duty, without question. But I always assumed they were in it for the long haul. You know, serving us lunch and everyday dinners until we were old and shriveled.
Over the years, we even augmented the original set to accommodate our bigger dinner parties and holiday brunches. We didn’t exactly coddle the dishes, but we certainly respected them. Loved them even. They have meaning, after all. Not just the wedding-gift-from-my-mom part, but the fact that they are older than our children and have offered up countless family meals and survived endless childhood shenanigans.
But I ignored all the warning signs. The chip here, the hairline fracture there. I brushed those off as normal wear-and-tear. If only I’d known they were a cry for help! Because now the mass suicide, the lemming-jump so to speak, seems to have begun and will not abate. Every few days, another crash can be heard echoing through our house, another cry of despair, another dish gone from this earth—or at least from this kitchen.
I can no longer turn a blind eye to the rampant platericide. I must accept the fact that my dishes are unhappy for some inexplicable reason and have made the choice one dare not name. I must finally face the awful truth that I live in a dish-functional household.
What shall I do?!
Deb: Buy new ones! I think your dishes are telling you that they are “bone china tired” and that they have “served” their purpose.
Do not despair, Barb. They have served you well and have been hearty and faithful china. They have been exemplary place settings! An idea might be to make something wonderful, lasting, and meaningful out of the chips and have it be art, which would be a fine tribute to your amazing artist Mum who gave you the china in the first place. In fact, your Mum might be totally into creating something fitting out of the dishes for you. Something that would always remind you of homemade meals and family gatherings of yore.
But make no mistake, your dishes are asking you, begging you, to change place settings. Maybe you have not been listening, and as a result, they had to resort to drastic measures. It is hard I know. I would not have seen the signs either. But they have resorted to “place setting suicide” to tell you how they feel. They have gone to pieces over loving you and yours. Let them rest in pieces.
LOLOL 'Let them rest in pieces' heheh hoooo LOVE this! My dishes have never quite rebelled like that around me. I always put them back in their places ;o)
ReplyDeleteDeb is right- they are just bone (china) tired, and want a break (literally).
ReplyDeleteRetire them while they still exist.
I've changed my dinner plate sets so often because of my carelessness, I can't even imagine one set serving me as long as yours have.
Jessica, I guess I don't have a firm enough hand. A little dish-ipline might be in order?
ReplyDeleteRayna, funny how I kinda assumed I'd get away with the till death do us part. KInda naive, I guess.
As long as you still have the husband from the wedding, you're doing fine.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen broken china necklaces? You could take one of the larger pieces of one of your broken plates or bowls and have it made into a really pretty necklace. For some examples, go to http://www.etsy.com and do a search for "broken china pendant." You could even have matching earrings made from smaller shards.
Thanks, Rigel -- those are really gorgeous! Actually, what I didn't tell Deb was:
ReplyDelete1) I threw out every piece of broken china
and 2) my mother would never EVER make anything with china, broken or otherwise.
But I love the idea of it. In fact, if I remember Nag on the Lake made a table for her garden with broken china -- and it was gorgeous!!
Where your dishes seem to be doing dish suicide,mying seem to be vanishing into thin air. It's like the just go POOF and gone. I can have so many dishes at the start of the week and then at the end only have just a few at the end. Maby there is some strange dish world that dishes go to when they are lost. If it is I really would like to know where it is at cause I really need my dishes back,badly.
ReplyDeleteOkay, Lyndsie, that's just weird. It's the energy! It's the energy!! Run! (ps, if they come back, ask them where all the socks are)
ReplyDeleteHaha, sorry to hear about your suicidal dishes, but this really gave me a good laugh. So many clever word plays. Ten points to the first one coming up with something with kamikaze in it ;)
ReplyDeleteI mourn your dishes but triumph the invention of platericide. I want to go and smash something to commit platericide.
ReplyDeleteKamikaze Compote?
ReplyDeleteThe dish, not the jelly.
The K doesn't match the C, but orally/aurally, it is alliterative.
Cruella, you have thrown down the gauntlet of word play. I cannot resist. I must rise to your verbal challenge!
The compote clattered to the floor is a kamikaze catastrophe. The platter grabbed a knife from the dish drainer and committed seppuku. It's shattered shards slid down the garbage disposal, the grinding sounds of destruction a reminder of the platter's pain.
ReplyDeleteI'm still trying to come up with something involving a despondent 9x13 lasagna pan and a test tube of hydrofluoric acid.
And, at some point, a drinking glass is going to have to play with a blow torch and melt and twist itself into a glass swan or something.
The pie pan panicked. It huddled in the back of the cupboard quivering with fear as the homicidal egg beater spun its blades menacingly while searching the kitchen for new victims.
ReplyDeleteThe kitchen carnage continues.
ReplyDeleteA masochistic gravy tureen moaned in pained pleasure while being spanked by the sadistic spatula. An innocent coffee mug opened the cabinet door and witnessed the debauchery. Unable to cope with the sight, the mug flung herself to the kitchen floor.
The Shakespearean salt and pepper shakers delighted as a thick stew double double toil and trouble fire burn and cauldron bubbled in a cast iron Dutch oven.
Meanwhile, the frozen peas in the freezer quietly plotted their sinister midnight uprising. There would be no peace when the peas raged.
The teapot screamed her shriek of horror as she witnessed a stabbing. Pulp, seeds, and juice streamed from the counter and splattered onto the floor. The ice pick cackled malevolently over the murdered lemon and then fled to hide in the dark caverns of the under-the-sink cabinet.
ReplyDeleteThe soup spoons abseiled down from the utensil draw and began their covert trek toward the dining room. The dining room drapes had no idea the dark and devious fate that awaited them.
And, still the frozen peas plotted. They sent a lone emissary across the freezer to the popsicles in hopes of recruiting allies for the upcoming attack. The ice cubes whispered amongst themselves in their trays. They couldn't believe the foolish blindness of their blackhearted freezermates. Didn't they realize that an assault on the outside was suicide by melting?
A gang of wicked shrimp forks held down the hopelessly weak water glass. They trickled a stream of brandy into the glass in way that was shockingly reminiscent of water torture. Then, the volume of their chanting rose louder and louder. "Flambe! Flambe! Flambe!" Their poor victim rolled and slid trying to escape his fate, but he was too outnumbered by the shrimp fork chieftan and his minions. The chieftan called out, "Silence!" A hush fell over the shrimp fork mob. All that could be heard was the pathetic whimpering of the doomed water glass. Then, the chieftan's deep, malevolent laughter echoed off the kitchen walls. He declared, "It's creme brulee time, boys!" Two shrimp forks ignited the kitchen blow torch and began to slowly rake its flame along the water glass. The water glass shrieked and writhed, but not for long. Soon, he was melted beyond hope. The evil of the shrimp forks knew no limits. They twisted and stretched their victim into their newest trophy: a spun glass swan.
(I think Rigel must start writing books for children. That's imagination.)
ReplyDelete(For Cruella, MJ, and Rigel): I thought I had good karma, but it seems when it comes to dishes I have karma-kazi.
Karma-kazi! *bows before the master* You win. And, this from the fabulous writer chic who brought us "Misteress" earlier. *humbly grovels before Barbara*
ReplyDeleteChildren's books? A sadistic spatula spanking a masochistic gravy tureen, and you think children's books? *eyes Barbara suspiciously*
So, should I continue the kitchen carnage or hush up?
Oh Barb, God love you. I can't imagine having a set of dishes that are older than my children. I grew up in large household...lots of kids and the usual accompanying chaos. Dishes came and went and consequently we dined, happily to be sure, on the residual mismatched sets of same.
ReplyDeleteOnce I had my own place, I swore my table would always present a visually united front. And
I've kept the pledge...I couldn't tell you without counting how many sets of dishes I have...but it's a lot! And when I buy every-day dishes, on average of once a year, I buy in quantities, say 12 sets for serving places, 16 for mugs, 18 for flatware, that if something gets broken or lost, I will still have enough to never have to use mismatched stuff. Once I fall below a dozen, I donate to charity then buy a whole new set of whatever. Deb's right...drop everything including the rest of the dishes ...and dash out and get new.
P.S. My kids continually whisper that I have OCD behind my back but since neither is a Doctors, I pay them no mind!
OCD? Obviously Coordinated Dishes? What's wrong with that?
ReplyDeleteYou guys crack me up! I love all the puns and word play.
ReplyDeleteI think Deb is right. Maybe use them to make a mosaic.
Ha! Thanks, Rigel. But no bowing necessary with you in the game! (PS: aggressive dishes? did you not read children books when you were growing up? I remember a lot of violence and mayhem. But then I'm old...)
ReplyDeleteAnnette! Love the dish OCD. Must take a page.
Thanks, Lisa! Love the playin' the words.
Barbara – Violence and mayhem? Yes, of course, aplenty. But, borderline PG13/R sexual content. Ummm, no. Even Bunnicula, a rabbit for gosh sake, didn’t get it on.
ReplyDelete*looks around* *boredom breeds mischief* *decides to post the final chapter that’s been composing itself in my mind all afternoon and evening*
Kitchen Carnage, cont.
The angel hair pasta was gazing vainly at herself in the mirrored surface of a stainless steel pot while brushing her tresses 100 strokes.
An onion and a garlic clove were having hot, steamy sex in a saute pan.
But, in the sink, another relationship was coming to a tragic end. A 9x13 glass casserole dish, known to his friends as Lasagna Pan, was backed up to the side of the sink begging for his life. Across from him stood his irate wife, the colander. She held certain death in her hand: a test tube of hydrofluoric acid. She screamed and wailed her words with a rage gone past reason into insanity. “I’ve given you the best 10 years of my life! For a decade, I’ve strained your noodles! Your most essential ingredient! And, now, NOW, I find out you’ve been cheating on me with that SPAGHETTI HUSSY!! And, AND,” she paused to gasp for air as the final words were so painful and unbelievable that they choked her throat closed, “BOILED PEANUTS!!!” With that, she splashed the HF across Lasagna Pan’s chest. He looked down with astonishment as the etching spread across his expanse. The pain began to sear him, but he knew he wouldn’t have to feel it long before the etching finally cracked him fatally. With his dying breath, he whispered one last word, “Rosebud.”
But, the terrifying drama playing out in the sink was a pale nothing compared to the darkest evil in the kitchen: the lone can of Spam. Banished unknowable years ago to the unused, unreachable cabinet over the fridge, Spam what a constant, chronic source of fear in the dark for the kitchenfolk. Spam was the Jungian boogeyman of the kitchen. Now, make no mistake, there would never be a surprise heartwarming ending with a misunderstood Spam. Spam would never be a Sloth doing the Truffle Shuffle with Chunk in Goonies. Oh no, Spam was thoroughly, undeniably, irredeemably, utterly evil. On campouts, young Slotted Serving Spoon Scouts sitting around campfires telling scary stories would inevitably come around to whispering about the time Spam supposedly burnt an entire family of toothpicks in the hot water tank’s pilot light. One Slotted Serving Spoon Scout reported that his friend, a can of creamed corn who lived in the first cabinet over the counter, one night heard the unmistakable sound of an electric can opener whirring in Spam’s cabinet. A can of kidney beans complained of having his sleep disturbed by mysterious, ominous thunks and bangs from the dark lair. And, the hominy would fan herself and swoon whenever asked to recall the night of the snapping mouse traps. And, everyone knew that Spam was the one who stole all of the shishkabob skewers. Yes, all the sharp, pointy, lethal shishkabob impaling implements. Hypotheses about what went on in Spam’s lair ranged from a Frankenstein’s laboratory to a dungeon of torture. But, the mystery of the evil Spam would always remain just that – a mystery – because anyone who found themselves in a position to learn the truth about Spam would never live to return and tell the tale.
The foul and woeful way of life in the kitchen seemed as though it would continue unabated. Would the sad normalcy of deviance, violence and fear continue without respite? What no one could know was magic was brewing. Redemption was germinating in the form of a small, sprouting basil seedling in a pot on the window sill. He would grow to be a mighty warrior. But, the saga of Benevolent Basil – Kitchen Crusader and his trusty sidekick Chervil will have to wait for another day.
Heh! Funny, clever ladies.
ReplyDeleteHoo boy Barb, a good excuse to buy new dishes. Have fun!!
BUWAHAHAHAHA! We've had some sets do that... We periodically buy 'complimentary' sets of 4 so that our mish mash of dishes at least doesn't CLASH. Then again, we so seldom entertain, and when we do, it is a special occasion, so we get out the china. I WISH we had a china hutch so I could unbox my grandma's china... that's what i'm going to do if I ever have extra money... buy a china hutch... erm... after we fix all the things that are broken in our house...
ReplyDeleteBarbara – Violence and mayhem? Yes, of course, aplenty. But, borderline PG13/R sexual content. Ummm, no. Even Bunnicula, a rabbit for gosh sake, didn’t get it on.
ReplyDelete*looks around* *boredom breeds mischief* *decides to post the final chapter that’s been composing itself in my mind*
Kitchen Carnage, cont.
The angel hair pasta was gazing vainly at herself in the mirrored surface of a stainless steel pot while brushing her tresses 100 strokes.
An onion and a garlic clove were having hot, steamy sex in a saute pan.
But, in the sink, another relationship was coming to a tragic end. A 9x13 glass casserole dish, known to his friends as Lasagna Pan, was backed up to the side of the sink begging for his life. Across from him stood his irate wife, the colander. She held certain death in her hand: a test tube of hydrofluoric acid. She screamed and wailed her words with a rage gone past reason into insanity. “I’ve given you the best 10 years of my life! For a decade, I’ve strained your noodles! Your most essential ingredient! And, now, NOW, I find out you’ve been cheating on me with that ENCHILADA HUSSY!! And, AND,” she paused to gasp for air as the final words were so painful and unbelievable that they choked her throat closed, “CHICKEN TETRAZZINI!!!” With that, she splashed the HF across Lasagna Pan’s chest. He looked down with astonishment as the etching spread across his expanse. The pain began to sear him, but he knew he wouldn’t have to feel it long before the etching finally cracked him fatally. With his dying breath, he whispered one last word, “Rosebud.”
But, the terrifying drama playing out in the sink was a pale nothing compared to the darkest evil in the kitchen: the lone jar of horseradish. Banished unknowable years ago to the unused, unreachable cabinet over the fridge, Horseradish what a constant, chronic source of fear in the dark for the kitchenfolk. Horseradish was the Jungian boogeyman of the kitchen. Now, make no mistake, there would never be a surprise heartwarming ending with a misunderstood Horseradish. Horseradish would never be a Sloth doing the Truffle Shuffle with Chunk in Goonies. Oh no, Horseradish was thoroughly, undeniably, irredeemably, utterly evil. On campouts, young Slotted Serving Spoon Scouts sitting around campfires telling scary stories would inevitably come around to whispering about the time Horseradish supposedly burnt an entire family of toothpicks in the hot water tank’s pilot light. One Slotted Serving Spoon Scout reported that his friend, a can of creamed corn who lived in the first cabinet over the counter, one night heard the unmistakable sound of an electric can opener whirring in Horseradish’s cabinet. A can of kidney beans complained of having his sleep disturbed by mysterious, ominous thunks and bangs from the dark lair. And, the hominy would fan herself and swoon whenever asked to recall the night of the snapping mouse traps. And, everyone knew that Horseradish was the one who stole all of the shishkabob skewers. Yes, all the sharp, pointy, lethal shishkabob impaling implements. Hypotheses about what went on in Horseradish’s lair ranged from a Frankenstein’s laboratory to a dungeon of torture. But, the mystery of the evil Horseradish would always remain just that – a mystery – because anyone who found themselves in a position to learn the truth about Horseradish would never live to return and tell the tale.
The foul and woeful way of life in the kitchen seemed as though it would continue unabated. Would the sad normalcy of deviance, violence and fear continue without respite? What no one could know was magic was brewing. Redemption was germinating in the form of a small, sprouting basil seedling in a pot on the window sill. He would grow to be a mighty warrior. But, the saga of Benevolent Basil – Kitchen Crusader and his trusty sidekick Chervil will have to wait for another day.
Dang, dang, dang it! I missed something. I should've put in the above something about the irony being that the colander had "strained spaghetti" many times behind Lasagna Pan's back.
ReplyDelete*grumbles*
Lindsey, My dishes went MIA. Then I found them under the couch and beds, seems the monsters got tired of eating off the floors.
ReplyDeleteBarb, I know what you mean, my dishes have started to throw themselves to the concrete floor. The coffee cups are the worst ones. But I think they have a little help from the dog's wagging tails that are coffee table height.
Rigel you can't leave us hanging like that. What were the frozen peas planning and did the Popsicles join them?
Wow, Rigel! Amazing! Thanks for that. And PS seems like you might've had some posting issues today??? Dang it...
ReplyDeleteTJL, dog tails definitely don't help matters!
Amazing wordplay and back and forth! Barb and Deb - look how involved and clever your readers are! No wonder you're up for a Canadian Blog Award - you've got us all reading, thinking, agreeing, agreeing to disagree, participating and writing ... LOVE your blog!
ReplyDeleteLove Sandy
Thanks, Sandy! Ain't it the truth (about our amazing and clever readers)?
ReplyDelete