The most damage I do is to crockery and glassware - not really a problem as 99% of all our stuff hails from second-hand shops etc, but there are a few times when breakages have been moments and even possibly hours of sadness depending on the item.
I have a very clear childhood memory of breaking a sacred plate of my mother's - I wasn't menopausal of course, but she probably was, and another great virtue (not) of this particular part of life is to become wildly overemotional, often about . . . very little. I can't remember the plate now, but I do recall my letter (carefully embellished with clumsy flower illustrations) we found many years later which spoke of my distress at obviously causing great sorrow: 'sorry Mum that I brok your bestest plat'.
Yesterday, I brok(e) - I can spell a little better now - the third of our rather fine butter dishes. The first was a handmade receptacle, the second a super 70s orange and blue thing, and the third . . . sob . . . a black glass dish featuring a wolf or maybe a fox on its lid. It had come from a car boot sale years ago, brought out after the last china-smashing incident and had graced the breakfast table for several months.
During the washing up it had met with the tap. I had stood staring, not even able to swear colourfully, then quietly swept it up (after a photo-record) and threw it away.
"What was that?" Mark's voice issued from the front room with a certain resigned tone reserved for yet another item on its way to landfill/recycling.
"The black wolf dish."
Silence.
Butter was served on a small oval plate at breakfast, not good as the cat was already eyeing the unprotected yellow substance. Good excuse to go round some junk shops I suppose . . .
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