The Glass Boot

I have had a boot shaped drinking glass for twelve years. I bought it at a yard sale when I was about 17 or 18. My friend Jill was a Beatle-Maniac and we regularly went "yard saling" on Saturday mornings the summer I got my first car. She was always looking for an original album - and never found one. I was along for the ride (or rather - to give the ride) with no goal in mind - when I found the boot. The glass has come with me from Oregon to Pleasant Grove to Tooele and Grantsville.

Every time we have moved or cleaned out the cupboard holding our glasses, I have had to defend the boot glass to Toby.

"Why are we keeping that stupid boot? It's the only one we have. You never even used it."

To which I would say "Someday we'll have a kid who will think this is the coolest glass in the world and he'll freak out if we even suggest he drink out of anything else. I am keeping it." and it would go back on the highest shelf to be forgotten again.

I didn't buy the glass with the intention of passing it on to my children - not at all. I just thought it was cute and it reminded my of my friend Katy's little brother. He had an identical glass that he would use on a daily basis. If we tried to give him milk in anything else he acted like we were trying to make him drink boiling oil. Plus, the glass was a nickel.

But, even though I didn't really have a clear purpose for the glass, I just hung on to it...part of my inherited pack rat nature. Ask me about my dad if you're not sure what I mean.

Today someone (not Toby) cleaned out my glass cupboard for me while I was out of the house. When I came home, she was gone but the glass boot was sitting on the counter, an obvious statement that it did not belong. Perhaps her way of saying "didn't you want to throw this out?"

I picked up the glass, and was about to put it back in the cupboard when Robbie saw it and started squealing "I want it, I want it, I have it!"

And to further prove me right, he commenced to have a melt down twenty minutes later when I suggested he use a sippy cup at story time (a traditionally horizontal activity in our house).