Thursday, July 31, 2008

Love And A Red Plastic Water Glass

When I was 18 years old, I swiped a red plastic drinking glass from Pizza Hut. I don't remember now what the circumstances were that lead to my lapse of legal judgement but I do know that my ownership of this glass is lacking in integrity.

Even so, this glass has been my favorite container for drinking ice water for 28 years. No one else in my family dares to use this glass. For one thing, it has been deemed as mine for all these years. Second, since I am the only one who uses this glass, I do not wash it with every use or even every day. Eeeewwwwwwww! My husband is a little disturbed by this behavior, so he kindly runs it through the dishwasher every now and then, but I usually discover it missing and ask, "Where is my water glass??"

Recently, my mother in law was at our house for a visit and behold, I saw her using my water glass. Yes, MY water glass! I was a little put out and asked her where she had found said water glass when she chose to partake of her beverage from my glass. She kindly responded that it had been in the cabinet. I not so kindly retorted that it must be clean then, lucky for her, as I rarely wash it. (I actually sounded proud of this gross behavior.) She seemed undisturbed by my concern and continued to finish her beverage.

She was leaving to go home the morning of this occurrence and so after she had left, I rummaged through my kitchen, trying to locate my glass and make sure that it would be washed and ready for my next drink of water that day.

I could not find the glass anywhere!

I looked high and low, every possible place - the cabinet, the dishwasher, the bedroom where my mother in law had slept, the bathroom - EVERYWHERE! Even my daughter joined in the search, but we could not find my water glass anywhere. I had to wonder if my husband's mother had taken my water glass. (now that is real paranoia)

That evening, I told my husband, "I think your mom took my water glass!" and explained the scenario from that morning. He was aghast. He could not believe that the glass was gone. The search was on for the second time. We looked again, in all the same places and even a few more. We still could not find the glass. My husband, somewhat bewildered, said to me, "I guess I will have to call my mom and find out what happened to the glass." I, of course, agreed.

We went to bed that night, sad over the loss of the glass that had been in our family for almost thirty years, but even more forlorn at the thought of our dear mother (and mother-in-law) stealing, oops, I mean accidentally taking my favorite water glass out of our home!

The next morning, I woke up and selected a new glass to drink my water and take my vitamins for that day and shook my head in disbelief.

On the way to work, my husband called me on my cell phone with great news! He said, "I found your water glass!" I asked, "WHERE??" and he said...."In the trash!"

What??? In the trash??

My response was, "Your mother threw my water glass IN THE TRASH???"

Need I go on?

I love my mother-in-law. My husband loves his mother, apparently enough to dig through the trash to save her reputation.

Or, I could just look at it that he loves ME enough to dig through the trash to look for my beloved glass.

Imagine my joy when I came home from work that evening and saw this lovely sight...


4 comments:

Mary Ann said...

thank god. it turn out that my dr. pepper is still here too.

Anonymous said...

Mother-in-laws, I tell you what.!! They think they can act like your mother. Haha!! That glass is so Pizza Hut, even after 30 years.

Unknown said...

I actually laughed out loud after reading this.

pam said...

That is too funny---the whole story. I like that he went through the trash for you.