It is just a 2-cup cup.
But 35 years ago, it was not. It was a horrifying mistake.
I was working in someone's kitchen as someone's help and dropped the cup and chipped the handle.
In my world, nothing came from new. You got whatever you needed or thought you might need from a friend or the sidewalk or a thrift store that, never in its wildest dreams, would ever become a consignment shop.
But, here, in another person's home, where clearly everything was much better than I owned, I had broken something not mine and that obviously didn't come from the street or a friend or a thrift store. This lady bought new stuff.
The next day I went out and bought, new, a replacement 2-cup cup for my employer and took the old broken one home, wrapped up the chipped handle with black electrical tape and used it for the next three-plus decades.
Some time ago, moving things around, the cup fell onto the floor, chipping the sprout completely. off.
That broken cup lived on my desk for months. I kept staring at the black electrical tape on the handle and the piece of broken glass sprout and wondered why, in all these years, I had never gotten a new one. Money has not been as tight as when I worked as help, so it wasn't about affording it. After all, I never thought twice about buying a cheap airline ticket to the possibility of being loved.
There are somethings that fall into that space of "you don't spend money on that." Which in Florence land was just about everything. Except maybe airline tickets.
I still haven't bought a new one. Well. Maybe someone will give me their old one, or leave one out on the sidewalk or I'll find one in some thrift store that isn't interested in being anything except a place where people like me look for things they need.
**
Related Posts:
Sunday Memories: Upstairs, Downstairs
Sunday Memories: The Difference
Sunday Memories: Even The Cat Was Found On The Street
