the few, the treasured, the orphan glasses
I love scoping out mismatched glasses in thrift stores. It’s fun rummaging through and looking for odd pieces that have their own, unknown histories of lives I never knew. I always wonder how they got there, whether they were impulse purchases or unwanted gifts, or perhaps the flotsam cleared out after a death in someone’s family. I like to envision them in their previous lives and, at least with the goblets and fancier stemmed pieces, I like to imagine what occasions they were used to toast. Engagements and weddings? Births and adoptions? New jobs and promotions? Retirements? Publications? This last one would certainly get them used in our household!
In addition to those I get because they catch my eye, lately I’m picking them up here and there for Himself, who loves to make, photograph and write about cocktails (which you’ll find at The Booze Nerd and Dr(Ink)Gorilla). They add to his trove of glassware for photography, so it’s not just the same one or two glasses shown in every drink photo.
At times I curse the sameness of the regiment of glasses in my cabinet bought by the box at Target or Macy’s or Pier I. I’ve sighed more heavily over breaking one of my odd, one-of-a-kind glasses than over a Waterford goblet received as a wedding gift. It makes me want to stuff the cabinet with odd glasses and send the matching sets to a thrift store where I can ignore them in favor of mongrel bits and pieces to include in my orphanage of glassware.
Maybe I just need to toast more momentous occasions with those Waterford glasses. Then they’ll be as special to me as the odd pieces. It’s certainly worth a try.
