Some people’s glasses are half full. Some are half empty.
My glass always seems to be broken.
At some point in my adult life, I developed a preference for sipping my adult beverages out of a nice glass, rather than a plastic cup, the bottle or the can. I should note, I still enjoy beverages that come in bottles and cans, I just prefer to enjoy them in a glass. I feel like it’s a very grown-up thing for me to do.
Several years back, my favorite glass for sipping was one that I had won in a golf tournament with my grandfather. It was not the most competitive of tournaments — a scramble on a nine-hole, par-three course — but it was quality time with my grandfather, who has since passed away.
During a dinner gathering, a guest grabbed that glass from the cabinet. It was left too close to the edge of the counter, and ended up getting knocked to the floor. While my perception of the incident was carelessness, they certainly didn’t know the sentimental value the glass had for me.
Anyway, we found a matching replacement glass. While it wasn’t the glass I had won, it still brought back fond memories. That glass, however, ended up under a heavy pan at the bottom of the dish drain, and didn’t survive the encounter.
A couple of other glasses received as gifts also have not fared well. My kids gave me a nice glass one year for Father’s Day, which cracked in the dishwasher. And my wife gave me one as a birthday gift, which mysteriously cracked while sitting empty on the counter, with nothing around it.
That was about the time when I realized that maybe I’m not meant to have a really nice glass.
I prefer to look on the bright side, and consider this a blessing, not a curse. It means that whenever I go somewhere interesting, I can look for a glass to commemorate the adventure, without having to worry about running out of cabinet space at home.
For example, while visiting London last summer, we took a day trip to see Stonehenge. It was amazing, and I purchased a pint glass at the gift shop. But after a recent trip out of town, we came home to find the glass missing. We later learned from our housesitter that it had been broken, and found a few of the fragments in the vacuum collection bin.
My daughter brought a new Stonehenge glass when she came home for Christmas. It will get plenty of use — until something else happens to make it unusable.
In fact, my wife got me a really cool glass for my most recent birthday. It has a three-dimensional Denali molded into the base. I joked that I should probably just leave it in the protective packaging. But then again, if — or when — it breaks, she knows exactly what to get me next year.
At this time of year, it’s customary to count our blessings, and raise a glass to ring in the New Year.
It is my hope that your glass is full, if not running over, in the coming year. For me, I’m just hoping my glass stays in one piece.
Will Morrow lives in Kenai. Email him at willmorrow2015@gmail.com.
