Day 15. We are Family

I've got all my brothers and sisters and me

On the weekend I went home to my parents' place (its the Sunday thing to do) and was greeted with a giant pile of my belongings which had been unearthed from their hiding places. Apparently, so I am told, now that I have my own place with a number of giant closets, I am not allowed to use my old (and now very empty) bedroom as a my own personal storage locker. Boo.

So, along with two giant boxes of old youth group paraphernalia, all of my elementary school report cards and some beautiful kindergarten artwork, my entire collection of baseball & hockey cards, a large box of knick knacks and otherwise useless stuff from my childhood, oh, and my Grandmother's set of silverware, came the dreaded set of dishes.

As my mother was handing the boxes to me (read: shoving them at me with the gleeful excitement of someone who was reclaiming an entire closet) she said to me, "everyone needs a completely useless set of dishes in their home, these are yours." Thank you Mom. "Besides," she said, "you've got your grandmother's antique buffet to put them in. Oh, by the way, take her silverware with you too." Once again, thank you Mom. I wasn't about to tell her that I had already managed to fill the buffet full of my own useless things.

I've been dreading this moment since the day I was about 12: How to discretely leave behind an entire set of dishes without getting caught? Apparently, I failed because the dishes are once again in my possession. I blame the kitchen renovations my parents are doing. Otherwise, the dishes wouldn't have been unearthed for years, I'm sure of it.

The dishes are a family heirloom. I know this because I've been told many, many times. "You had better hang on to those dishes, they're a family heirloom you know. Your great, great Aunt Grace hand painted them herself and she would want them to stay in the family." Its like a scolding every time I hear it. Not by my mom, no, she couldn't get rid of them fast enough. It was my dad's aunt who passed them along to me because she had no biological children of her own.

Not only are they completely fragile with broken bits painstakingly Krazy-glued back together over the years, but they were also apparently hand painted which makes them a health hazard to use because of the lead content in them (this fact is debatable). I would however suffer the guilt trip of a lifetime should I somehow lose track of their whereabouts. Good grief!

But don't you worry, they're safely packed away, nestled into a spot inside the buffet, waiting for the right next-generation Beirnes female to inherit them! I sure do hope that one of my brothers has a little girl someday...