It was the crash that was heard around the world. Well…not exactly. It was the crash that was heard all over Tim’s parent’s house. After the crash, the next sound I heard was Tim’s mother calling out, “Oh no!” I jumped up and ran downstairs. While I knew she wasn’t hurt, I knew something was wrong and it was most likely my fault.

When I reached the kitchen, the first thing I noticed were pieces of a dish spread out across the floor. It had completely shattered. Standing next to the pieces was Tim’s mother.

She went on to inform me that the dish broken was a platter given to her by her parents when she had gotten married.

That was a little ironic. You see, it was Thanksgiving and it was the first one after Tim and I had gotten married. To me, that made it a Thanksgiving unlike any of the others. I was right about that, but not in the way I had expected.

Tim’s parents had us over and after we had eaten, I volunteered to clean the kitchen. First, I wanted to show my appreciation to his mother for all the cooking she had done for us. Second, I was raised to help clean your guest’s kitchen. If they had taken time to cook for you, then you have the courtesy to clean their kitchen.

I had washed all of the dirty dishes after we ate, but I didn’t know where she kept them in the cabinets. So I crammed as many as I could into the dish drainer. To this day, I remember stuffing the platter into the side of the drainer. I thought I had it lodged in there enough to keep it stable. Obviously, I was wrong.

As the rest of the family piled into the kitchen, I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole. Where was Jonah’s large fish so I could jump into its mouth?
Being accident prone is never easy!

His mother didn’t fuss or get mad at me. She simply cleaned up the mess and went on. But, in good humor, she did bestow a new nickname on me that has stuck: “Disaster Area.”

Don’t misunderstand. She loves me and I love her. If she thought for one second that my new nickname would upset me, she would have never called me, “Disaster Area.”

Actually, I thought it was funny and I was kinda proud of it. Not many people could pull off being a Disaster Area with the finesse that I have over the years.

“The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.” Proverbs 19:11 (KJV)

I have to admit that if I were her; I don’t know if I could’ve handled that as well as she did. I’ll give her kudos for that. When it came down to it, she loved Tim and me more than that platter.

“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (KJV)

I was thankful that Tim’s family as a whole didn’t get upset at me either. So it was a very thankful Thanksgiving for me in a weird kind of way.

On a positive note, I am very thankful for dishwashers. That way I don’t have to worry about things falling out of a dish drainers. Putting them up in the cabinets is another story.

Hey, I still have to live up to my awesome nickname: “Disaster Area.”