The coffee mug slipped out of my hand. I watched it, seemingly in slow motion, as it fell to the floor. I wondered if this might be my lucky day, and it wouldn’t break. That was a vain thought, and I knew better. When it hit the hard Saltillo tile floor, it exploded and sent shards of pottery across the kitchen. “Oh well,” I thought, “at least it didn’t have coffee in it!” By the time that I’d swept up the pieces the muffins were ready. I took them out of the oven and placed them and the fresh coffee on the kitchen counter. I hoped that the aroma would draw out my visiting daughter and son-in-law. It seemed to have my desired effect, and they emerged smiling

It was an inviting Houston spring morning. We took our muffins and coffee outside and sat around the patio table. The dogs greeted us thrusting their soft expectant noses in our laps. Their tails waged in happy greeting. The garden, always its best during the spring, was bursting with growth, and our roses bloomed in a magnificent profusion of color. The setting was peacefully idyllic. For a while, we chatted about the garden, and then my daughter turned to me and casually asked, 

“Mum, what did you break this morning?”

I had already forgotten my mishap, and so I replied, “Oh, nothing, just a coffee mug. Why do you ask?

She smiled and looked at her husband, “This morning David remarked that he hadn’t heard anything being broken this visit. I was just chiding him when we heard the crash echoing down the hall. We had to laugh because he is so right!

I nodded in accord. Sometimes I wonder why I break so many things. Is it because I move too fast, or is it my eyesight or perhaps eye/hand coordination, or merely a case of pathological clumsiness? It has always been a problem. Nowadays, I am thankful for Replacements Inc which I have bookmarked in my computer. My casual one item accidents are so commonplace that they don’t upset the household. Sitting there sipping coffee and enjoying the spring air, I let my daughter’s question prompt my recollection of a more dramatic calamity during my early teens. Looking back, I wondered whether it was the natural precursor or jinx which set me on my clumsy path

It happened when I was growing up in Durham in the north of England. From time to time, my parents gave dinner parties. My mother was a superb cook, and my father had an excellent wine cellar, and so these parties were elaborate affairs. Guests were first ushered into our formal ‘drawing room’ with its full-length pale blue curtains, and robin’s-egg-blue upholstered chairs. Here they were served my father’s signature ‘gin and it” cocktail. After an appropriate time, the party would adjoin to the adjacent dining room where a magnificent table awaited them. Against the backdrop of full-length golden- -yellow damask draped windows stood a long mahogany table polished to such a high gloss that you could see your reflection in its surface. Each place setting was immaculate, fine China, antique three-pronged Georgian silver, crystal glasses, brilliant linen and sparkling candles in silver candelabra

My mother didn’t have kitchen help so first course was generally already set out on the table. My father usually poured a light white wine to accompany this delicacy. When it was finished my parents would hurry the dirty dishes out of the room. The kitchen was remote from the dining room, and so they stacked the dirties on our large breakfast table in our breakfast room adjoining the kitchen. With a flourish, my mother would then present her main dish, and my father would pour an accompanying wine. So, the meal progressed, the dirties were again whisked into the breakfast room, and desert was served together with a sweet white wine. When they had finished eating they would go back to the drawing room to drink coffee and nibble on After Eight chocolates. I imagine that my father served after dinner drinks, brandy and scotch, although I don’t remember. Conversation would wax loud, and they sat and talked until late

While the dinner was in progress on my sister, and I were banished to our room. My parents didn’t have a dish-washer and so after the guests left they would clear the table and slowly work their way through the accumulation of dirty dishes stacked upon the breakfast room table. On the occasion of my recollection, my sister and I decided that we would creep downstairs and do the washing-up as a surprise for our parents

The design and layout of our kitchen was a mess. Looking back, I am amazed that my mother managed to produce her trade-mark culinary marvels in such poor surroundings. It was a large room but, unlike modern American kitchens, it didn’t have lengths of built-in cabinets or continuous counters or an island. Along the side with a window was a large double sink with draining boards on either side and beyond these on either side were full height built-in cabinets in which china and glass were stored. My mother had two trestle tables which she placed in front of these built-ins to serve as staging areas / work surfaces when the ‘good’ china and glass were not in use. On the occasion of a dinner party, they were pulled out into the room to give access to the cabinets. Along an adjacent side was the oven, cook-top, another small table, and tiny under-counter style refrigerator. The other sides were mostly taken up by doors, larder door (it is cold enough in the north of England for the larder to serve like a refrigerator), an outside door, and the breakfast room door leading into the rest of the house. My sister and I adopted the two trestle tables as staging areas and began with the glass.

We took turns being washer-up and drier. Sixty glasses got washed and successfully put away. Then we began on the plates, bread plates, appetizer plates, and dessert plates all without mishap. The next step was the dinner plates which we stacked on one of the trestle tables ready to wash. That was when I noticed that the heavy Waterford crystal water jug was also on the trestle table. I decided that it could be emptied and put away without washing and took it off the table.  To my horror the table tilted and deposited all twelve crown-something dinner plates on the floor. They all shattered

At this point, I showed tremendous presence of mind and had to comment that at least they were still dirty! Looking back, I can only speculate that sometimes nervous laughter is the best way to relieve tension. We shoveled up the mess, and disposed of the broken pieces in the trash. We swept and washed the floor and finished our self-imposed task by washing and polished the antique silver flat-ware. By now the enormity if the breakage had begun to sink in and knowing how wild my mother could be I decided that I’d rather not face her initial outburst and that the better part of valor was to retire to my bedroom

The dinner party broke up soon after I went upstairs. When my parents returned to the breakfast room and kitchen to begin their clean-up my mother’s first comment was

“It’s immaculate – so clean!” Then she looked around and asked, “But, where’s Jane?” I’m sure that my absence was odd and that she wished to thank us together.

My sister, with her honed sense of drama, responded. “Oh, Jane ……, – she’s upstairs committing suicide!