As I Was Saying
Glass Dismissed
By Alan Williamson
Peek inside the kitchen cabinets in our home and you’ll come face to face with a disturbing secret my wife and I have kept quiet for decades: we keep our socks and underwear in with our plates and dishes. Okay, not really. That’s a disgusting lie designed to get your attention, but if you really did open our kitchen cabinets, you would see something almost as jarring: a massive stash of drinking glasses that has spiraled way out of control and continues to expand against all rhyme or reason.
Spooked by the seemingly bizarre imbalance, I recently sat down and did the math: 2 people divided by 124 glasses = 62 glasses per person per day. And that doesn’t even factor in the countless glasses squirreled away in china cabinets, the living room wall bar, and boxes under beds, in closets and stacked out in the garage.
Our “glasses of mass consumption” surplus started innocently enough. When my wife and I first joined forces, I possessed a certain number of assorted drinking glasses (8) and Sherry had a certain, somewhat higher number (58). As time went on, my glasses – which mostly consisted of 16 oz. plastic tumblers commemorating an outdoor event that I consumed a cold beer at – were weeded out to make room for more respectable, stylish glasses that came in sets, had elegant stems, and illuminated alluringly when the light hit them.
Now, as best as I can figure it, here’s where things started to get out of hand. During occasions when our “good glasses” played a prominent role in a social gathering at the house, we became quietly and irrevocably identified by well-intentioned friends and family as “appreciators of nice glasses.” This led to our receiving sets of glasses as gifts on a regular basis. Red wine glasses. White wine glasses. Red and white wine glasses. Crystal dinner glasses. Smoked dinner glasses. Every day dinner glasses. Indoor/outdoor glasses. Fancy coffee drink glasses. Holiday-themed coffee mugs. Coffee mugs from the White Castle Hamburger collection that, in spite of their blatant promotional purpose, are sturdy, first-rate mugs worth reaching around the more “respectable” mugs in the cabinet to get to.
On any given day, in fact, my choice of glasses follows a conspicuously narrow and predictable pattern.
Morning: I’ll reach for a White Castle coffee mug or a mug that says “The Grand Village: Branson, Missouri.” (I’ve never been to Branson, Missouri, but the mug evokes an odd sentimentality in me fueled by visions of an ancient Andy Williams singing The Hawaiian Wedding Song while I eat roasted chicken and mash potatoes at a dinner theater with busloads of tourists.)
Noon: I’ll reach for a 12 oz. plastic tumbler that says “Promenade in the Park: The Family, Food and Fun Festival” or a 16 oz. plastic tumbler that says “It’s 5 o’ clock at the Quarter Deck Lounge.”
Night: I’ll reach for a tinted German wine glass with a green spiral stem or a goblet-style wine glass with grapes hand-painted on it by our friend Jane while she skillfully drank wine from another glass.
According to my meticulous calculations, that leaves about 56 glasses allotted for my daily use that are severely underemployed and deserve to hear the words “glass dismissed” any day now. Even if I quadrupled my daily fluid intake, I’m reasonably confident that I could still get by with less than 10 glasses, even if it meant resorting to more or less unlimited refills of the multipurpose “Promenade in the Park: The Family, Food and Fun Festival” mug.
One consolation in all this is that during candid conversations with intensely private couples who prefer to remain nameless (Uncle Al and Aunt Jean), I’ve discovered that others have a similar baffling surplus. While the consensus is that it’s nice to have extra glasses around for when you have company, Sherry and I don’t throw the kind of get-togethers where 124 glasses are needed on standby to be called into active service.
Actually, Sherry and I don’t throw the kind of get-togethers where 24 glasses would be needed. That being said, you never know when the national tour bus of a philharmonic orchestra might break down in front of your home and serving refreshments in paper cups would reflect poorly on your reputation for exceptional class and cultural sophistication.
In the meantime, please excuse me while I refill my “It’s 5 o’clock at the Quarter Deck Lounge” mug. It’s not the most attractive glass in the house, but it holds a hardy 16 ounces and when I accidentally knock it over lunging for the last chicken wing I can pick it right up, wipe it right off, and start all over again.
Alan Williamson is an award-winning writer with 27 years in the field of true fiction (advertising). A practical man who knows that writing for a living is risky going, he has taken steps to pursue a second, more stable career as a leggy super model. Alan can be reached at alwilly@bellsouth.net.