Evidence that one's kitchen contents can have vicious, revengeful personalities

We're smashing, we are, in our house.  In fact, we're always smashing.  We've been smashing for years now.


Here's a picture to show you in what way we are smashing......













This picture may as well have been taken in our kitchen and entitled, 'Fran's kitchen floor after a washing-up session'.

Our neighbours probably think we lob china at each other every night after dinner as an alternative to watching Eastenders (and that would be perfectly understandable) but we don't.  We just Drop Stuff Very Easily.  And our kitchen floor is tiled with those freezing cold ceramic tiles that give the soles of your feet haemorrhoids.  So, nothing bounces when you drop it.

Except that .....

.... no matter how many of our favourite plates, cups, glasses, bowls, saucers, casserole dishes, cafetieres, blah blah blah blahs we smash, there are some items in our kitchen that just refuse to die.

Let me introduce you to Vile Glass Bowl, who lives with us (I like to think of it as temporary foster care) along with her five matching Glass Bowl sisters.  They are a very close-knit family who are obviously desperate to stay together, and were given to us as a present by a well-meaning person who could come round At Any Time.  Ah.  You see our dilemma.



(Not the actual item, but very, very like it.  Unfortunately for it.)


So, you're introduced.  Say hello to Vile Glass Bowl.  But don't hold your breath.  She doesn't listen.  I think she's deaf, like all of her sisters.  I come to this conclusion because, when I'm washing any of the VGBs up, and shouting, 'DIE, YOU VILE GLASS BOWL, DIE!' they completely ignore me and live on, as smug as a ....  as smug as a .... as smug as a ..... as smug as a naughty little simile that's playing hide and seek with my brain.  

Smashing the VGBs to smithereens on purpose seems immoral.  It needs to be gradual so that we can say with a clear conscience to our friend, Mr Generous-but-Tasteless, in a couple of years' time, 'Oh, what are we LIKE?!  We've accidentally broken every one of those GORGEOUS bowls you gave us.  You KNOW you shouldn't have trusted us with anything breakable!'

And we can't just send them to the local charity shop.  Mr G-but-T is bound to pop in and see them.  I suspect he may be a regular in the charity shops.  In fact, I strongly suspect that the VGBs themselves may have originated from such a shop ...

So, we continue to use them in the hope that regular use makes it much more likely that they will have early deaths.  After all, we smash everything else in the kitchen really easily.  Not a week passes when we're not holding a funeral service for a well-loved dish or mug, singing a hymn ('Oh God Our Help in Ages Past, Please Will You Help our China Last') as we sweep it up with the pan and brush. 

But it seems the VGBs are indestructible.  Here's a bit of typical Fran's-house dialogue of an evening ...

[From the kitchen.]    CRASH!  

Husband:  Oh, flipping heck.

Fran [races into kitchen, excitedly]:  Is it one of the Viles?

Husband:    No, sorry.  Your new mug with the Scrabble design on it.

Fran [distraught]: I only bought that last week!  It was £12.99!

Husband:  Sorry.

Fran:  Have you washed up the Viles yet?

Husband:   Yep, all six.  There they are, stacked on the draining board.

Fran:  Did you squirt loads of washing up liquid on them, like I told you?

Husband: Did that.

Fran:    Did you accidentally-on-purpose hover them over the floor                                                      before stacking them to dry, like I told you?

Husband:   Yep.

Fran:   Did you pray, 'Dear God, I will be good for the next year
if you just let these VGBs die young?' like I told you?

Husband:  Yep.

Fran:   [big sigh] Oh well, maybe tomorrow.  I can't wait for the 
day when we're using plates again rather than dividing our
dinners into pie, peas and potatoes just to use up all the VGBs.

Husband:    Me too.  Do you want to go and get the hymn book so we can 
start the service for Scrabble Mug?  

Fran:   Yes.  But this time, let's sing, 'Morning Has Broken, But                                                                  Unfortunately, Not the VGBs'  

Husband:  Or, what about, 'Rock of Ages'?  Ha ha!  Geddit?  Rock of ..

Fran:  [gives Husband 'The Look'] 

Husband:   Ahem.  Okay.  Let's go with Morning Has Broken ...



                                                         




Comments

  1. Semtex. Try washing up with semtex.

    Bang... and the dirt is gone.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh no! All that lovely crockery! Have a great weekend - and get some lino :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mine are a little flatter and wider. Bought for us by my MIL decades ago. Because, as she told my mother, Diana always stopped to admire them in the shop window ;~)

    How about seconding them to garden duty, as pot saucers??

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have an equally lovely--& thankfully small--set of dishes. You may as well give up--THEY WILL NOT DIE!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Maybe what you need is a small child. Would you like to borrow our grandson? (Give him a few months to build up some muscle tone.)

    (Actually... I think that bowl looks quite nice. Depending on the colour. Don't fancy it much in that fawny colour. Have I no taste at all? Ooops.)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Steve - You are a bear of Very Big Brain.

    Helen - thanks! And bouncy lino is a very good idea.

    Elephant's Eye - I can just see The Friend coming round and saying, Oh, shall we sit in the garden? and I'll be thinking, Aaarrggghh!

    fishducky - they are the Dishes of Eternal Life.

    Isabelle - you think the bowl looks nice? I am defriending you instantly, or whatever one does on blogs.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Smug as a Radio 2 DJ who's been around for far too long and and thinks he's Gods Gift to afternoon radio? Steve Wright I'm looking at YOU. I still miss Terry.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sorry - the vile bowls? Tried the microwave?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sob.

    My friend once blew out a candle, got wax on her specs and decided to put them in the microwave to melt the wax.

    It was quite hard explaining to the optician how she'd melted the titanium frames.

    (Don't you think that the bowl has a certain retro charm...? No. Oh well. In a nice colour? Full of Maltesers?)

    ReplyDelete
  10. I cannot stop laughing about this-is it the word "vile"? Bahahahaha! Yes, it is! Now see? Shorter just wouldn't do this justice! We have a hideous, heavy glass ice bucket with giant gold knobs and dancing wood nymphs all around it. Yes, it's as ghastly as it sounds. I will observe a moment of silence for your Scrabble mug...

    ReplyDelete
  11. I think that when you give a gift, that's your part done. What people do with that gift after it's left your hands is entirely up to them and has nothing to do with you. Take them to an op. shop in another town and save your washing up liquid.
    Do you have to serve something up to these people on the VGBs when they visit? Do they expect their tea to be served in bowls? I feel for you, but I would just get rid.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I was going to suggest lino, but perhaps a Greek themed party would do the trick?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Cook something very complicated , requiring multiple trips to a specialist grocers the other side of town . Arrange lovingly in Vile Bowls which you then place on tray .
    Lift tray from kitchen work surface .Watch them slide from tray .
    Voilà !

    ReplyDelete
  14. Invisible - ooh, ooh, I hear bitterness. But I miss Terry, too, from the morning show. Can't bear the shouty man.

    Isabelle - you spoke?....

    I'm Crayon - from the description of your bowl, it sounds like we are sisters in suffering.

    Sue J - Ruthless, you are. Ruthless. Sensible. But ruthless.

    hausfrau - that is INSPIRED. And I love baklava with a passion. Great excuse to indulge.

    SmitandSon - Should I butter the tray first?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Many years ago, my father (not a DIY person) put up a plate rack. The best dinner sevice was stacked in it - all of it - and the rack came down. There were no survivors.

    How about a dodgy plate rack for your VGBs? Then you can say, hand on heart, they were victims of a tragic incident (if not accident)?

    ReplyDelete

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