Last night
I went to Target to return some bowls which I bought on an impulse because
they were on sale and I thought they might match some plates I had at
home. But it turned out they had a design around the outside and I was
looking for plain bowls. Anyhow... I found four alternate bowls, bought
them and left.
On my
way back to the car I started to laugh and said, " Omigod! What
am I thinking? I'm buying dishes."
You see...I
forgot to tell you about the dishes.
It started
small, as addictions do. First there were the pretty little green plates
at the flea market. I thought they would make nice desert dishes. Then
there were some similar pink ones. I started to find out more about
them and there was no stopping. Soon I scored a matching berry bowl
or two, and eventually a creamer and sugar bowl joined the party. Each
new item required another be added to fill out the set. Once you start
collecting something, you seem to develop radar for that item, so there
was never a dearth of new items to pick from.
Sooner
or later though, I got tired of those dishes and got rid of them. But
I never got rid of the dish habit. And fortunately, or unfortunately,
I married a fellow junkie, and we have had many a dish fixation over
the years.
In conjunction
with the depression glass, we were also doing Hall China. I liked Hall's
Crocus dinnerware, and looked for that at every opportunity, and had
a fair number of pieces. But mostly we concentrated on teapots. We went
to all kinds of lengths to satisfy our addiction. We were so hooked
on Hall that we once made a detour to Liverpool, Ohio just so we could
stop at the Hall factory there to buy from the source. There, among
other items, we purchased two Ronald Reagan teapots. How could we not?
Our lust
was not limited to collectibles, though. We went through many phases
from looking for formal china in 30's patterns, to buying great bargains
in everyday dish sets at garage sales. One set of white stoneware became
a family joke. My kids named them "the dreaded white plates"
because they were so heavy that everyone hated setting the table with
them.
We also
liked to randomly check out the housewares sections at various stores.
Once we found a style of everyday china we liked, but I wanted only
the color shown in an obscure picture on the box because it would go
perfectly with a rug I had in the dining room. No one in this area had
that color, so we ended up calling the company to find that that color
was available only from a store in L.A. So we special ordered it from
California. The sad thing is I rarely used that set and I no longer
have the rug. But I've still got the dishes.
At any
given time we probably have had portions, or all, of a minimum of five
and up to seven sets of dishes in our house. At least it doesn't represent
any real outlay of money since, as usual, I've bought most of it at
garage sales.
If there
is one sure thing, though, it's that we don't need to be buying more
dishes. Still... a couple of cheap bowls can't hurt... it just kind
of rounds out the place settings.
I don't
think it takes an ephiphany to let me know that I need to come to terms
with my "a-dish-tion."