Girl9.67 and I were recently invited to our friends' house for a party. We had not been to this house before, and the hostess was eager to make a good impression (please note that this was certainly not necessary, we were not there in Inspection Mode).
As we drove up the driveway, we remarked to one another about the beautiful paint job (they finished it last fall), the well tended yard, and the overall beauty of the house itself. The inside did not disappoint. The spacious rooms were painted artfully, and hard wood floors lead into a cozy, tile-floored kitchen.
Girl9.67 immediately melded with the girls, and I drifted into the kitchen, where I accepted the invitation to a glass of wine. The hostess took a beautiful, tall wine glass from the cupboard and looked at it thoughtfully. She had a twinkle in her eye, and when the host encouraged her with a "Do it, Babe!", she dropped the glass to the floor.
Shards flew around the kitchen as the air was filled with the sound of breaking glass. I thought I felt a piece zip past my ear. My mouth may or may not have been hanging open in shock. The look on the face of the hostess, however, was priceless. She was frozen in the middle of the tile-floored kitchen, her eyes wide with pure surprise, and her hand suspended in mid-air. She stammered for a few moments while the rest of the guests chortled. "This is supposed to be shatter resistant!", she exclaimed with dismay. The tweens all rushed in to see what the commotion was, while the adults waved their arms and shouted, "No! No! Stay out of the kitchen with your stocking-feet!" The host brought in the vacuum while the hostess swept. Other guests kindly picked up nearby shards or pointed out sparkling bits for the clean up crew.
Once the mess was cleared up, the host took another wine glass from the cabinet. I was thinking how nice a sip of wine would be at that moment, when I heard him say, "Babe, you must have had the wrong kind!" as he flung the glass to the tile floor. Again, the air exploded with a crack and the fragments flew. Still standing in the same spot from which I had witnessed the first mishap, I speechlessly looked at our host. He had the same stunned look that his wife had had a few minutes before. There was a moment of silence and then time started up again. The girls stampeded toward the kitchen and the other guests and I motioned them back. The hostess reappeared with the vacuum. I was thinking what a good commercial this would be for their Dyson. Again, the guests laughingly pitched in by gathering particles and spotting others to be removed.
I did wonder if I was ever going to get that glass of wine, but I need not have worried. Another glass, from the same set, was procured and poured without incident. The discussion continued to revolve around the difference between shatter proof and shatter resistant, if the floor material mattered, whether or not the glasses had been washed in the dishwasher, and the ease of returning the remaining five glasses from the set to the store from which they were purchased.
It all came back to the demonstration that the host and hostess had witnessed at the store, she explained to us as she uncorked a new bottle of wine. She retrieved a glass for herself from the box and washed it. Before she poured her wine (her first drink of the evening, if you were wondering), she tapped it against the counter. "I can't figure it out", she shook her head. "He was banging it really hard on the counter in the store, like this!" She continued to knock the glass against the counter, striking harder with each blow. I cannot speak for the other guests, but I was flinching at every swing she took. When the glass broke I was only surprised that it had not fractured sooner. The girls did not even dash in to the kitchen this time. Only the hosts' own daughter sauntered in, glumly surveyed the scene, and wandered out again. I heard her report, "It was my mom this time!" I suspected that this was not what she considered acceptable parent behavior at her birthday party.
The purposeful destruction of three wine glasses certainly did not ruin the party. One might even say that it was a good ice breaker, and that the party was a smashing success. I am convinced that there is a moral in this story somewhere, something about people who live in glass houses - no, that is not quite it.
People Who Live in Houses Should Not Throw Glass.
