I
like old things. A few years back we ripped out the 1960s double sink in our bathroom, put in an antique chest as a vanity, and gave our contemporary bathroom a little charm from yesteryear. (See, the cats seem to like it.)Two of the accessories on my bathroom vanity are antique soap dishes. Yes, two. Hubby likes milled soap and I like glycerin soap. (Although I like his soap, too. I switch back and forth.) His soap dish was bought at a flea market in Maine. It's got pink roses. Mine was bought at a yard sale in Pultneyville, NY.
Oddly enough, when I bought both of them (years apart) they each came with "sister" soap dishes. Three of each. Since I was a vendor in an antiques arcade, I sold the other four, and these different soap dishes have lived quite happily on the vanity.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday was the day the cleaning ladies came. And they just happened to have two new recruits who were learning the ropes. Guess who broke one of my soap dishes?Ya know, there are terrible things happening in this world on a daily basis. The aftermath of the earthquake in Japan, war in how many countries. Little kids with no medical care. A broken soap dish is not a big deal, but for some reason it put me in a funk. The soap dish wasn't even valuable. I only paid a dollar for it. But I loved it!
Later, I told my mother about it and she said. "You can have one of my soap dishes." As it happened, years ago I had bought her a brown transferware onion patterned soap dish. You see, my mother has blue onion dinnerware. (Guess what? So do I! I searched for years for a dish pattern I liked and finally Mr. L said--well, what would you REALLY like, and I said, "My mother's dishes." Duh! I got my own set!)
I'm still a little sad about my broken soap dish (today is garbage day--goodbye china chards), but in a few weeks the new one will feel like it's been there for ages. And it does go rather nicely with the rest of the decor.
By the way, the cleaning lady felt terrible and apologized profusely. What an awful thing to happen on her very first cleaning job. I hope the rest of her day went better.
So, what silly thing in your house would you miss if it broke?
