What a Dish!

I love dishes. I love looking at dishes online, on store shelves, and on other people’s tables. I love the beauty of their designs, the colors, the various ways to mix and match them. We own three sets, four if you count the four-place Christmas set I found at our local MCC a couple of years ago.

So it came as a shock when I realized that I have never, in all my 59 years, purchased a new set of dishes. My parents gave us a four-place melamine set when we married, the remains of which went with our youngest son when he moved out. I acquired our “blue onion” set with S & H green stamps when we lived in the States. My brown and white “Royal Mail” set was a hand-me-down from Mom. And our “fancy set” was a freebie from a boss forty years ago. He rented storage units and when customers left items behind in unpaid-for units, I sometimes got first dibs on said left-behinds. (Is that even legal? I hope so. We still have a rocking chair acquired in the same fashion.)

Anyway, I look at this varied collection of chipped and cracked dishes in our cupboards and then I gaze at the gorgeous ones on the store shelf (I’m particularly smitten with the mix and match “Pioneer Woman” line) and I ask myself, “Are you nuts? Why on earth don’t you just break down and buy some new dishes, for cryin’ out loud?”

It’s a good question. I could, without too much difficulty, drum up the money for a nice new set. I could. So what’s my problem? Well, first of all, for many years drumming up the money would have been unrealistic. New dishes are a difficult purchase to justify. I mean even if they’re chipped, they still do their job. Right? That kind of thinking dies hard. It’s why people who survived the Great Depression still save used bits of string in jars labelled “Pieces of String Too Small to Use.”

Secondly, once I choose a set and commit to it—that’s it. I’ll have to be satisfied with my choice and stop drooling over any other set. This is the same reasoning that keeps some people single all their lives.

My new favorite mug dwarfs the one from my 1970's Blue Onion set.

Thirdly, have you noticed how big they make dishes these days? Plates, mugs and cereal bowls hold twice what the old ones hold. Why is that? I am afraid if I get bigger dishes, I will eat more food. It’s a psychological reality. No wonder obesity plagues this continent with all the giant plates and coffee mugs we use!

So I keep resisting. And we keep eating off our reasonably-sized, chipped plates. Food tastes the same either way. Hubby couldn’t care less, as long as he’s not expected to wash them. Speaking of which, I’ll leave you with an old poem you may remember seeing over a kitchen sink or two. It’s attributed to Mary Stuber.

Thank God for dirty dishes;
They have a tale to tell.
While others may go hungry,
We’re eating very well.
With home, health, and happiness,
I shouldn’t want to fuss;
By the stack of evidence,
God’s been very good to us.