Thursday, January 21, 2016

In which I consider eating glass. As you do.

So, about a hot minute after I was all, "I have a stress fracture and haven't gone to the grocery and now we're going to starve and die unless I go to the grocery and use the motorized cart to give oblivious and rude shoppers tickets?" Yeah. Well, I determined that I had just enough stuff in the house to cook up some tortilla soup.

I was totally Becky Home-Ec-y. I was stretching my grocery dollar. I was being creative with my ingredients on-hand. Sure, the recipe called for an onion that I didn't have. No problem! I'd use a pepper and throw in a little garlic. It would be a taste sensation. I was the best wife on the planet, and a culinary visionary.

While the peppers were simmering on the stove, a stack of cookbooks on top of my fridge collapsed. This sent a very cool antique jar careening across my tiny kitchen.

Miracle of miracles, the jar didn't shatter. Yahoo! Sure, I'd just learned that I had a broken bone in my foot. But that was evidently the extent of my crap quota. I put the jar back on top of the fridge and straightened the books.

You know where this is going.

The books collapsed again. Either I have a poltergeist or I live in an old house where nothing is square. Either way, the books collapsed and the jar flew off the top of the fridge. Again.

Then? Then, the jar didn't shatter. It ... self-obliterated?

The metal lid was left. But there were no large pieces of the jar left. The glass had hit the edge of the stove and exploded into millions of teeny, tiny shards. My kitchen didn't look like a glass had broken. Instead, it looked like I'd dropped a box of glitter.

I wasn't doing the best job of keeping it together anyway, and I have to admit: this broke me.

When My Guy got home about 20 minutes later, he found me vacuuming the kitchen counters and drinking right out of the wine bottle. As you do. Because there was no other way to pick up the glass, and I needed some liquid assistance.

He asked what I was doing. And I may have cried a tiny bit when I explained that it had NOT BEEN A GOOD DAY.

Then, we both stood over the pot of half-started soup. I rested my head against my husband's chest, and we silently stared into the abyss, trying to decide if the soup-to-be was filled with glass shards.

Finally, My Guy said, "That's totally going to kill us. We should order Chinese."

This is adulthood.

And yes, for those keeping track? This wasn't the first time I considered whether or not food filled with shattered glass was edible.

6 comments:

smalltownme said...

I have been there several times. I have chosen not to eat glass, but I might have eaten bits of paper.

Karen (formerly kcinnova) said...

I thought this concept seemed familiar... and I have been there. I hate disposing of what was perfectly good food (not counting shards of glass) but there is only so many times I can cough up the co-pay for my insurance.
Antique jars become glitter -- good to know!

Becky said...

I've been there too. And while we may not have eaten glass, we've certainly had paper and maybe some wee bits of foil, but those were on mystery foods from the freezer that about two bites in we gave up on because in addition to being a mystery, they were way too freezer burnt.

Anonymous said...

Oh, shit. Thank goodness he offered to get Chinese. I bet it went well with the wine.

cookingwithgas said...

Order up!!

Nance said...

First thing I thought of: Thank heavens she had some wine!

I'm terribly sorry for all of your Troubles, but you know what? Probably that jar had to go anyway. And as far as the soup, well...hey. You gave it Your Best Shot. You already proved that you could Do It, and you even improvised with the pepper. Nothing left to do.

Chalk it up as a Win!