And Then There Were Five

And then there were five

I had just left the front porch and was at the kitchen sink when I heard the crash.  It was more like a “clack”, glass on glass as it were.  “Oh, no!” I thought, stiffening.  When I went back onto the front porch where I had been sitting ready the paper, it was not Tater up on my chair about to scarf up the unfinished leftover sandwich sitting on the table that truly dismayed me.  No, although that would have been not good because I am sure the green-fried tomato and ham grilled ham sandwich from Appleby’s would surely have upset her tummy; no, that was not was made my heart sink.  As I ran out to the porch, I saw was had happened.

I should have known better than to leave the glass unattended as windy as it had gotten outside.  It was the still half-full glass of iced tea (see, I am an optimist!) I had left on the table to go into the kitchen to do, what, I cannot recall now.  Anyway, a gust of wind had somehow managed to lift up the folded paper bag that the LA Times had inserted into my Sunday newspaper with the promotion from Officemax offering to give you 20% off of whatever you could stuff into the bag on your next shopping trip there.  I had put it aside thinking that maybe this time, (even then, knowing I probably wouldn’t), actually take advantage of the offer.

The wind had flipped the bag over, the bag then landing on the half-full glass, knocking it over onto the table surface sending the contents flowing onto the cement floor of the porch.  The glass lay on its side, empty.

For a brief moment I thought it was okay.  It did not look broken.  I picked it up to examine it.  It looked okay at first.  I thought, no harm, no foul, don’t do that again.  But then my heart sank.  I saw the crack.  Then two cracks.  I knew it was a goner.  The day had come for the set of glasses to begin their eventual trek to the land of broken glasses.

These glasses were a set of six (now five) that my great aunt had bought in the 1980’s at Fedco.  Now that may not mean much to most folks, but to me, they were always a heartwarming memory of both my aunt and of Fedco.  We often went shopping together at Fedco. She had been a member since it had opened.  I joined soon after moving to California almost forty years ago.  I remember auntie buying those glasses to replace, what else, another set of glasses that had one by one met there demise.  It seems to be the fate of daily-use glasses to one by one meet their doom.  Smashing on the bottom of the sink, slipping from your hand and dropping to the floor or just giving up the ghost one day for no apparent reason and shattering.  Five glasses remind you of the missing one.  Four become a set again.  Then three, how odd they seem, two, who would have a set of two?  And finally one lonely glass that sits forlorn on the shelf missing its mates.

I know it is rather strange make such a fuss over a broken glass.  Much like spilled milk, there is little use in crying.  But even knowing the day would finally come, it is difficult not to regret not being more careful.  If I had only taken the glass with me, out of harm’s way.  There would still be a full set on the shelf with their heartwarming connection to the past.

My aunt died in 1997.  She had lived to see the demise of Fedco and the death of Princess Di, two of her favorite things in the world.  I am not sure she would have been that concerned about the breaking of this glass.  But somehow it means a little more to me.  So few things in life last for as long as we would like.  A broken glass is a broken glass.  Nothing more.  Or so they would have you believe, those who do not attach much sentiment to things like glasses used every day.