The Poppy Dishes

Now that the Lad has moved out of our home for the last time, his second college degree being finished, Husband and I have been talking about getting new dishes to replace our well-worn, chipped ones. It has been an exciting thought, seeking out something new and more colorful than the beige dishes with the green lines on the rims.

When I was in the City an hour away last month, I dropped by Pier 1 Imports and found some gorgeous dishes with the theme of red poppies. They took my fancy immediately. I love red poppies. They make me think of the times I've spent in Europe in the summer. And I loved the warm colors of the golden background, the lovely flower-shaped dessert bowls and serving dishes. They were made in China, of course, but that was okay. We use lots of things made in China.

Being the careful sort, and considering the dishes were priced at $800-plus-some for a set of 10, we decided to wait and think it over. You don't want to jump at a purchase of that magnitude. We drove home without buying, thought about the dishes for a week, and still liked them just as much.

So we drove by the City on our way back from walking a half marathon one Sunday in Hood River, Oregon, and paid for the expensive 10-place setting of poppy dishes, complete with red square dishes, flowered square dishes, square bowls, mugs, and flower serving dishes. We lugged those heavy ceramic dishes home in surprisingly good cheer, considering we'd just spent a wad of money.

A couple of evenings later I unpacked a few of the dishes for their maiden voyage, serving pumpkin soup with croissants, cheese and tomatoes. My parents were happy to come up the hill to be present for the event. The meal was delicious . . . even more delicious, I'm certain, than it would have been on any other dishes in the whole world.  I was looking forward to many happy years eating off our red poppy dishes.

And then I filled the sink with soapy water and proceeded with the dish washing.

It was then that I noticed a sight that made my heart sink: Water had seeped in under the glaze at the seams of the bowls. The longer they soaked in the dish water, the higher the moisture soaked up from the base, darkening the ceramic of the dishes. I looked at the plates. The same thing had happened, spreading out from the square foot where it sits on the table. None of the set seemed to be water-tight.

Feeling sad, I took the whole set back to Pier 1 Imports later that week, a round-trip that wiped out a whole evening as I drove to the City, got my full refund (plus one penny, because it just happened that way when they figured it), and drove home. But more than the disappointment over lost time was the disappointment over a happy "find" gone wrong.

Sometimes we just don't get what we think we're getting. It's that kind of thing that makes you feel rather half-hearted for a while.