Another one of those posts that people who think blogs are stupid will use as an example of why blogs are stupid.

Is it dumb to love a bowl? Like a big plastic Easter egg-toned polka dotted bowl with giant cracks in the sides and warped sides from too much dishwashing?

Because if it is, I'm, like the dumbest woman ever.

LOVE YOU SO MUCH.

I totally love this thing. And, like the self-made assless cargo pants I JUST BARELY let go out in the trash last week (yes, it took me a few weeks to actually get them out there, despite my previous promises. Shut up.), it should probably be retired to the recycler to be made into, I don't know, big plastic bowls or something.

I'm going to assume you want to know how a person such as myself can generate such an attachment to a big plastic bowl, so I'm going to tell you, and if you're one of those people who think blogs are stupid because of posts just like this, where some rambling moron proclaims their undying love to a failing inanimate object like a big plastic bowl, well you can just fucking well click away from this blog and never return because I'll certainly be posting on similar subjects in the future. I have some flip-flops and a spiral notebook just waiting for their chances, after all.

We don't need you here in Big Plastic Bowl Loving Land, OK? Bye, now.

For those who remain, Hi - you are my people.

See, back in the day 10 years or so ago, I got laid off from a job in the tech industry along with about every third person in the Bay Area. It kinda sucked because that job was my first real job out of college and so it sorta blew to have to go back out into the world, just half a year after proclaiming my college education a success by pointing to my new shiny post graduate professional Job In My Field,  to go find The Next Job In My Field. This especially sucked because, like I mentioned, every third person around me, most of whom had had more than one six month employment In Their Field since graduating from college, were out hunting for the same four jobs that existed.

It wasn't a particularly good time to be looking for a job In My Field, is what I'm saying. Nor was it a good time to be looking for most any job in the Bay Area because our whole local economy was bursting along with the Tech Bubble.

I'm sure you heard about it. It was on a lot of news programs. Though unless you had invested in an IPO or happened to live nearby, your interest probably went something like, "Oh." and then you went back to whatever you were doing, like maybe eating popcorn or something similarly pleasurable.

Which brings me back to the bowl.

When I got laid off from my tech-based job, I immediately and for a while fruitlessly, began hunting about for a new one. It was not an especially enjoyable task - you know, being broke and jobless in the, at that time, most expensive place to live in the country. Even less enjoyable? Having to go into my former office on the weekend to collect my scrawny belongings and all the file folders I could carry.

Hey. They were in my desk. I'd touched them all, so it's not like anyone else would want them. Have I mentioned I don't wash my hands after I go to the bathroom?

I'm kidding. That's grotesque.

So, I had to go clear my shit out of the office given I didn't have a job anymore and, for whatever reason, I was allowed to do so without security's supervision (I'm starting to understand why this particular company went under), and it was a pretty depressing task.

Only two things saved me from inevitable emotional demise.

1. I used my thumbtacks to write GO GIANTS on my office wall.
2. I had a big package waiting for me on my desk, which was not on fire or filled with poo.

Also, I think there was a bottle of champagne abandoned in the office next to mine, so I took that, too. For sorrow drowning, of course. I considered it part of my exit package.

Anyway, after I finished with my festive farewell wall art, I opened the package while sitting on the floor of my used-to-be office, and beheld something so perfectly comforting, I could hardly wait to get home to use it.

This perfectly comforting thing came from one of my best friends, who at that time lived in Rome, and who knew me so to the core of my being, that she sent me this thing so that I'd perhaps not throw myself from the rooftops due to my torturous job that I'd just lost and was all the better off for having been left without.

The box held a few US Weekly-type magazines, some boxed movie-type candy, a few packages of microwave popcorn and this Big Plastic Bowl.

It was prettier and less crack-y at the time. In fact, it was glorious.

To say that it made me feel way better and almost like I could go on with my life is an understatement.

See, this friend and I were living parallel professional and personal lives at the time (albeit she was living hers in the Eternal City and I was living mine in the Imploding City formerly known as San Francisco), so I knew that it took a significant amount of financing and time wrangling to send me this gift of commiseration and well-placed cheer, and I won't lie - I might have shed a tear.

Though I'll admit to finding the bowl humorously ironic with its pastel polka dots of cheer even then.

Well, to bring this mind-numbing story closer to its end, I brought this bowl home and proceeded to eat popcorn from it for the next, I don't know how long has it been...11 years. Every time thinking about my friend and the ways our lives have changed and how we're still very close but now don't have to decide between $1 Suave shampoo and conditioner because we can't afford both. In thinking on it a moment, not only did I use this bowl while wearing un-conditioned hair, I'm 100% certain that I wore those now assless cargo pants (which had an ass back then) while eating popcorn from this very bowl, as well.

Oh yes, that for sure happened. Probably 100 times.

Unfortunately, dishwashers are sort of hard on big plastic bowls, especially when they're wedged between way too many dishes and pots on the bottom drawer of a dishwasher, so inevitably the sides got warped with time. And also the formerly clear plastic turned that milky etched hue you see now. And the base got all those fractures that plague old plastic cups and the like.

Why, that's not round now is it?

If this were glass, I'd be concerned.

And some time ago, I think after we moved into our house, the bowl came away from a particularly rollicking trip through the dishwasher with a crack on the side. Which then beget other cracks.
 

And now the bowl is something of a hazard, which is something I've had to admit to myself after more than a few minor wounds caused by said hazards.

I may be sentimental about bowls and pants and coffee mugs purchased from Etsy that were handmade by some faraway artisan who's handy with a paintbrush (another time, friends), but when the sentiment goes from nostalgia to bloody mess, my emotions change.

Basically, I am snapped back to reality where I'm not actually sitting cozily on my couch enjoying delicious popcorn while watching a movie with Bubba. No, I'm actually standing in my kitchen rinsing my bleeding palm under the sink while the dog eats popcorn from all the corners of the living room, which is where it all went when I pitched the muther effing god damned sonuvabitch bowl into the atmosphere after snagging my fair skin on its cracked edge.

I start to feel a bit dumb, is what I'm saying. Like why am I holding on to this malevolent bit of plastic when I now thankfully have the means to get another bowl to hold my popcorn. In fact, not only that, but I have a perfectly good bowl that even says Popcorn right on it, sitting on the top shelf of my cabinet right now which was a wedding gift from someone else who obviously is also a good enough friend to know of my lifelong love affair with popped corn.

Though, I'll have to get it down from its high perch.

Anyway. Yes, I still have this bowl. In fact, had some popcorn from it yesterday after I sat on my ass and watched bullshit movies while recovering from the muddiest, rainiest, most creek-crossing-est trail run in recorded history.

And I will tell you about *that* when photos are posted. To give you a preview of that post: Mud. Fun. Mud. Rain. Mud. Skiing in trail shoes. Mud.

For the bowl, well, I haven't yet thrown it into the recycler. It's actually in the dishwasher at the moment, perhaps awaiting its final farewell with the machine of its demise. Say your goodbyes, my old friend. Next week - you're going in the recycler.

I'll always love you. Even when you're filled with dried blood meal for the vegetable beds.

Or...maybe...like out to the potting bench for next year's vegetable harvesting? I don't know. I just wish I knew how to sew hard plastic. Perhaps you have a date with that big roll of duct tape?