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I had used some Christmas money (I am 47 years old) to buy a couple of nice things for the kitchen (ah yes, I am 47 years old), a revolving spice rack and a little nest of stackable storage jars to keep my breakfast nuts and seeds in (who AM I?). I should have learned by now that I am not allowed to have nice things. The destruction of 75% of my cappuccino receptacles in one week should have been a clear indication that I am too clumsy and messy to be a proper middle class grown up. I should just keep my seeds and nuts in plastic bags, or probably better just loose on the kitchen counter. It is all I am worth.
I unpacked the spice rack, which was an impressive array of around twenty double bottles of herbs and spices on a spinning carousel. As I lifted the rack to its new home one of the double bottles fell out of its place and hit the hard tiled floor with quite a smack. It hadn’t entirely been my fault as it had clearly come lose in transit, but maybe I should have checked. I was sure it would be broken or at least cracked and my bourgeois purchase would be ruined. But somehow, even though made of glass, the jar was intact (I can only presume God was inside it - that’s quite an oblique reference to one of my obscurer routines, but the three people who spotted it will be very pleased with themselves). It was a lucky escape. Imagine wrecking a Christmas present before it had even been in use. I doubt you can buy replacement jars. That little gap in the carousel would have haunted me.
Then I unpacked the storage jars. I had assumed these would be plastic, but they were made of glass, so I knew I had to be careful with them. Especially when I realised that as the lids were wrapped in plastic they didn’t fit properly into the jars and if you lifted them by the lids they would come part way out and then the lid would come off. But there didn’t seem to be anyway else to get them out. I would have to be careful. But I didn’t learn from experience and lifted out one of the six jars by its lid, got it most of the way out, before the lid came off and the jar rolled across the counter. I didn’t react, perhaps remembering what had happened to the spice jar and assuming the jar would bounce. It bounced on to the kitchen stool and then off the stool towards the floor. But it didn’t bounce on the floor. I heard a sickening crunch from the other side of the counter and of course my brand new storage jar was smashed.
Had it just been a single storage jar that would have been annoying, but I could have just bought another one. This was part of a pretentious set of stacking jars. And without this jar the set was pretty much ruined. I felt sick and like I was going to cry. There’s no use crying over a smashed stacking storage jar but that wasn’t necessarily going to stop me doing so. It was entirely my fault and shouldn’t have happened, which made it all the more galling. My dreams of convenient and space economical seed and nut storage were in pieces. This is why I can’t have nice things. Why am I trying to be something I am not? I am a five year old child, so of course I needed all my stuff made out of thick plastic, not thin breakable glass.
My wife took it well, I think seeing how devastated I was by this act of thoughtless stupidity. At least the cappuccino glasses had been used a few times. I had essentially just opened a box and then tipped the contents on to the floor. I was totally humiliated, but more than that, just fed up with having to live in this useless slapstick body, capable only of destruction, unable to construct the most basic flat pack furniture and incapable of even preserving something nice that has been made by someone else.
To be honest the stacking jars still worked as a fivesome, though they didn’t stack into three equal columns anymore and there was nowhere to put my brazil nuts. I could be dishonest and claim that the jar had smashed in transit and ask for a new set, but this was my responsibility and I wasn’t going to lie and get anyone else into trouble for my actions. I am a man of honour (in some cases).
So I emailed the company that made the expensive but stupidly fragile jars, told them what I did and asked if they sold these jars as separate items for idiots like me. Their customer service department got back to me within a couple of hours and said that alas they didn’t sell spare jars (presumably because most of their customers aren’t bull-in-a-china shop dolts), but that they had some spare samples in the office and would send me one for free. Even though I will almost certainly smash that one as I remove it from the packaging that was a lovely thing to do and helped alleviate my throbbing mortification (not entirely, I am still wincing at the incident - oh the humanity). That’s great customer service and I hadn’t even had to say “Do you have any idea who I am?” to them (which is lucky as I think we can assume that they didn’t). Thanks to Caroline at
Joseph Joseph for this wonderful gesture which has restored my faith in humanity and makes me think that 2015 might be a better year than 2014. I am disappointed that everyone working for Joseph Joseph is not called Joseph, but that only takes the tarnish off things a little bit. Ian Joseph and Ian Joseph, the twins who run the company (and have had to endure the ridicule of being given the same name by their idiotic parents) should feel very proud. I will certainly be buying more stuff from them, and reassuringly most of their products are made from plastic. I won’t get idea above my station again.
It’s a New Year miracle.
I fear my lavish Pret a Manger/cappuccino glasses/ Joseph Joseph lifestyle is distancing me from my fans who could never dream of such luxury. But at least I am showing you that the lifestyle of the businessman in his suit and tie with an income of upwards of £11,000 a year can actually be a millstone around your neck. I dream of the days I ate ham sandwiches that had ham in them rather than jambon and when I drank out of mugs (or actually just diet coke cans - I didn’t really like tea of coffee) and stored any excess food I had in my cheeks.
Enjoy your humdrum lives people. You are luckier than you could ever imagine.
