Published Nov 3, 2009
I may be predisposed to a bit of hoarding. Not that I collect empty yogurt containers or save used tissues; I just often find myself inclined to keep, you know, bowls that people gave me twelve years ago, or maybe I forget to throw away the stub of the movie ticket for Exit Wounds.1 One time, Mrs. DJ L’il Bit said this thing that helps me out, whenever I’m struggling to decide to throw something away or not: “that decorative peeler is not your mother’s love.”
It’s not that I’m hopeless when it comes to keeping the place nice; I know how annoying it can be to have a house full of clutter, I lived next to one for years. And I like to color-code everything. And I always put everything back in the place I found it. Exactly in the same place. Every time. So, you know, it’s pretty orderly around here. But that saying of Mrs. DJ L’il Bit still comes in handy — it’s easy, simple, and oh so correct. “That shot glass is not your memories of your trip to Southeast Asia.” “That t-shirt is not your college experience.” Etcetera.
But then there are the martini glasses. From Ikea. They are my love. Literally. And I’m about to sell them in a garage sale. They’ve been replaced.
Mrs. DJ. L’il Bit and I had been dating for just about two and a half months when we both needed to run to Ikea. There’s nothing like browsing through Ikea, asking yourself if you need a round cutting board, or a corkboard made for kids, or another duvet cover, or a frosted plastic lamp in this year’s shape, or a fern. (Since I like to keep stuff, the answer is: no, I don’t need it.)
Anyway, one thing about Mrs. DJ L’il Bit: she likes her hard liquor. Not that I can complain, since I’ve been known to enjoy a scotch,2 and I’m very picky about my gin. Put the two of us together, and we drink a lot of martinis. Starting from our very first dates, we’d really have a couple each every evening we hung out together, at least at her place; at mine, well, see, I didn’t have martini glasses.
So there I was, at Ikea, standing in front of a big display of martini glasses, trying to decide if I needed to buy them. It wasn’t the expense so much; it was that I have plenty of stuff, and if the martini glasses were going to come into the house, well, then something might have to leave. Thus I’d better really want those martini glasses. Would I keep the current girlfriend, DJ L’il Bit, for long enough to justify getting the new glasses? Or would we move on, and I find myself drinking more wine, or even soda, with the next girl?
That’s when the future Mrs. DJ L’il Bit appeared by my side, having finished looking at the kitchen goodies that she needed — probably silicone spatulas and plates with elephants on them. The future Mrs. DJ L’il Bit, she said to me: “so, deciding if you’ll keep me long enough to buy those glasses?”
She always did get right to the point.
And I did buy the martini glasses. Not because she called me on it; because I’d already decided that, yes, I would probably keep her long enough to justify having them in my home. Because, you know, I was completely falling for her.
You see, then, that the martini glasses — they were my love. I bought them because I was ready to make a bet on us. So it’s funny that, since I bet right, now they’re headed for the garage sale, replaced by fancy new martini glasses off of our registry. Which I rather suppose are our love too.
1 Which I really did see in the theaters.
2 One ice cube, please.
On behalf of all readers, may I say:
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
This is a test comment, after a software upgrade.