What-Not-to-Do Wednesday

Saturday night, we posted the turkey plates for sale on eBay. I dreamed of making some money for our trouble. I imagined taking Marnell’s parents out for supper. I envisioned buying gifts for the sisters-in-law.

The turkey plates had belonged to Marnell’s mom and she sent them along with us when Marnell moved his stuff. They weren’t especially sentimental to her,  not a wedding gift or a family heirloom. She suggested that we could try to sell them. I thought we could use them for awhile first, at least at Thanksgiving. Well, we like to do Thanksgiving in Mississippi, so the plates went unused and we decided to try to sell them.

True, some of the pieces weren’t that valuable. But there were the dinner plates, for which there was some demand on eBay, perhaps as people replaced broken pieces in their own sets. The large 18-inch platter, according to some research I did, was more valuable than any other piece in the set. Some people on eBay have it posted for $170 or more, though who is to say that they actually get that price.

I took a few extra photos for the eBay post, carefully bringing down one of the dinner plates for a better photo. I left the large platter, anchored in sticky tack where he has lived for nearly a year, because he’s so big it’s hard to move him, and anyway, he showed up well on the photos.

I was at the kitchen sink Monday afternoon at about 1pm, hastily washing dishes to recover precious moments consumed by cutting cauliflower. (“No good deed goes unpunished,” a surgeon I worked with once said.)

There I was with my hands wet, facing the sink, when behind me I heard an ominous clattering noise. In much less time than it takes me to type this, a tremendous crash followed, about ten feet behind me, as some unlucky item hit the ceramic tile floor.

Now, turning from the sink, I saw slivers of brown and white turkey plate lying in the silent chaos of a disaster zone seconds after a tornado has passed through.

Which piece of the fine set we had just posted for sale 40 hours before, had fallen?

I crept up to ground zero in my slippers and peeked around the corner.

The giant platter was missing.

Gone. From an 18 inch masterpiece of human skill to a thousand shards of hand-decorated genuine ironstone in less time than it takes to snap a photo.

How did it randomly fall? I can only conclude I jarred it enough during picture taking, that gravity saw it’s opportunity and came calling.  The courageous platter, having lived for decades, said “no” to gravity for about 40 hours, and then gave up.

Marnell in typical good humor replied to my text with, “Well, it should be easier to ship now.”

Tips:

1. DON’T prop your husband’s family’s dishes up with sticky tack, even if it makes them look cute.
2. DO marry a good-humored man.

Now to see if we can coax any money out of the remaining items!