Last Sunday, I was woken late at night by the sound of my mother breaking her ashtray. I was distraught. I don't smoke, although I was rather fond of that ashtray. She bought it when I was about four, when we went to Ibiza. It was a simple ashtray, a little piece of pottery painted with an old style of flowers. I have no idea what exactly possessed her to buy such a thing, it's horribly ugly and in a place like Ibiza, it couldn't have been incredibly cheap either.
So, it's ugly, possibly expensive and abnormally large. But now it's broken, and we feel like a great loss has befallen us. It was such a minor thing in our life, mine particularly. Every afternoon I would come home and it'd be there, in the kitchen next to the sink. I'd wake up on Saturday morning and there was the ashtray on the coffee table. The ashtray was a reliable staple in the home, like our microwave (which sadly had to be replaced recently, to the discovery that it was actually filled with water and at risk of exploding at any point).
My mum has recently ordered a like replacement off Amazon, but it just won't be the same. It won't have been bought in Ibiza, with euros (I think). It also won't have "Portugal '98" etched in the underside of the pot. In short, it would be a dull mass-market ashtray, rather than a mass-market ashtray bought in a tourist trap of a shop.
It's strange, how the smallest of things can be so greatly missed. I don't want to go all wax-lyrical about it, it was just an ashtray. But it was a nice ashtray, one that's been around longer than our residence of the flat in which we inhabit. It's outlived my mum's surname, the television, the sofa and the boiler (twice). As I said, I was quite fond of the ashtray.
I like familiarity. Before now, I've spend hours stitching up the end of the legs of jeans because I didn't want to let them go. Recently I allowed my school shoes to be so ill-fitting they gave me multiple blisters, and were pretty much shredding my feet. Yet I kept them for nearly half a year because they were familiar. Something dependable.
Actually, when this ashtray was broken, I offered to glue it back together. It had shattered into a thousand pieces, and yet I still offered to glue it back together. I'm going to miss that ashtray.
So, it's ugly, possibly expensive and abnormally large. But now it's broken, and we feel like a great loss has befallen us. It was such a minor thing in our life, mine particularly. Every afternoon I would come home and it'd be there, in the kitchen next to the sink. I'd wake up on Saturday morning and there was the ashtray on the coffee table. The ashtray was a reliable staple in the home, like our microwave (which sadly had to be replaced recently, to the discovery that it was actually filled with water and at risk of exploding at any point).
My mum has recently ordered a like replacement off Amazon, but it just won't be the same. It won't have been bought in Ibiza, with euros (I think). It also won't have "Portugal '98" etched in the underside of the pot. In short, it would be a dull mass-market ashtray, rather than a mass-market ashtray bought in a tourist trap of a shop.
It's strange, how the smallest of things can be so greatly missed. I don't want to go all wax-lyrical about it, it was just an ashtray. But it was a nice ashtray, one that's been around longer than our residence of the flat in which we inhabit. It's outlived my mum's surname, the television, the sofa and the boiler (twice). As I said, I was quite fond of the ashtray.
I like familiarity. Before now, I've spend hours stitching up the end of the legs of jeans because I didn't want to let them go. Recently I allowed my school shoes to be so ill-fitting they gave me multiple blisters, and were pretty much shredding my feet. Yet I kept them for nearly half a year because they were familiar. Something dependable.
Actually, when this ashtray was broken, I offered to glue it back together. It had shattered into a thousand pieces, and yet I still offered to glue it back together. I'm going to miss that ashtray.
