A shattering slip of the hand
7th September, 2006
|
There are some households in which I am absolutely forbidden under pain of permanent banishment to do the washing up. In one, this followed an unfortunate incident in which I broke two plates in the course of as many minutes while lending what was intended to be a helping hand. I was merely attempting to show my gratitude for an excellent meal by assisting with the domestic chores, but it all ended in grief and tears amid the shards of what were apparently extremely expensive plates.
I can still recall the host looking at me, quivering with barely suppressed rage and saying very slowly: "Please. Just sit down." I think that's what he said. He was speaking through clenched teeth and it was a little hard to understand him. Only a few days have passed since my last mishap, this occurring at my friend's place in an ill-fated attempt to display the caring, ever helpful side to my nature, I offered to do the washing up. There were two wine glasses, large, delicately executed, thin-stemmed goblets, and I swear the side of one barely kissed the edge of the sink. Another millimetre and it would have missed it entirely. "Ping!" The sound echoed through the mid-evening stillness of the kitchen. "Surely not," I moaned as I lifted the glass up to the light. The good news was that it was sparkling clean. On a lesser note, there was a large piece missing out of one side. The temptation when this happens is to wipe your hands, head straight for the front door, walk out onto the street, get into your car and drive away as quickly and as silently as possible. This is what is known as the Coward's Way Out and it is a course I have followed resolutely in life. But there was no escape on this occasion for unless I could convince my friend that a masked man had leapt through the window and held me at bay with a large knife while he smashed the glass before escaping into the night, the accusatory finger would be pointed directly at me. There being no alternative, I confronted the unpalatable inevitability of telling the truth. "There's been a small accident," I said as I explained the mishap. After several expletives of which rugby league's Andrew Johns would have been proud, she hissed, "When I met you I had twelve red wine glasses. Now I have three," pointing to a largely bare cupboard to underline her point. "I'll buy you some new ones," I said, remembering that only five months had passed since I last had bought a replacement box of glasses. It's the kitchen-sink tap that causes the most problems. Touch it, no matter how gently, with the rim of a glass and it's odds-on to shatter. Then there are those glasses that simply fall apart in the water, your first indication that something is amiss being a stinging sensation in your fingers. Seconds later the dishwater turns bright red as it is diluted with half a litre of your blood. Not that you can relax once you have completed the washing up, for I have had several wine glasses fall apart in my hands while I have been drying them with a tea towel. "Ping!" Suddenly you're standing there with a fistful of crystal fragments. In situations like this, it is perfectly acceptable to quietly fold the broken pieces into the tea towel and toss the lot into the nearest bin without saying a word, especially if you are at someone's place which you are not planning to revisit for a while. What is peculiar is that I don't smash glasses in our own place - some, admittedly, but not many, though there is a strong argument for rubber floor tiles to be mandatory in all kitchens. Sauce bottles and glass jars are more my at-home speciality, the "thwap" of a full bottle of tomato sauce hitting the tiles replacing the "ping!" of fractured crystal. Then there was that time I knocked over a vase the size of an oil drum which disintegrated into what seemed like 10 million pieces. That, unarguably, was my finest hour. |
