The Critic Becomes the Hoarder

So all summer there's this (really ugly -- I saved you from having to look at the awful appliqued geese/ducks? by the the angle I used to take the picture. Just a shuddering horrific experience to imagine the provincial country kitchen intended for this...) basket filled with blue glass sitting in the corner of the dining room at my Mom's house. I'm a little offended she hasn't offered it to me, my being the blue glass collector and all. I'm getting into a bit of an invisible snit over it so one day I stop by and she's not home so I just take the basket thinking it'll be years before she looks for it, if ever. This blue glass will look lovely all lined up above the kitchen cupboards in my new place. (Inside my skull I'm reminding myself that my Mom started out this way, just collecting a few little things placed nicely above the cupboards. The rational brain is yelling "Don't go there, don't go there," while the reptilian brain is calmly rationalizing "It's just a few blue pieces of glass, they will look just lovely in your new house!")

Check out the stash:

So, as you see, I line them all up and am very excited. Especially about the bottles and the four drinking glasses because the drinking glasses are gorgeously designed and the bottles are just so cool -- there are some obvious Vicks and Bromo bottles. (Aside: I have a tiny Vicks jar I've been using as a toothpick holder for years! What other uses can be imagined for the bigger Vicks jars?! Toothbrush holders! Tea Bag dispensers! Chop Stick holders!). The four vases are more common and also are mold made and have vertical creases up their sides -- probably they aren't worth as much because of that. (This whole last paragraph is the rational thinking of the reptilian hoarder mind, especially the bit about the Vicks jars.)

So, about a week later I go to my Mom's house and am stopped suddenly in my tracks when I realize something.

The right window is full of blue glass but the left window isn't. It is entirely unlike the hoarder to have unmatched front windows (though, disconcertingly, the curtains are unmatched because the room on the left is a bedroom while the room on the right is the living room.)

Right Window:

Left Window:

Obviously, the blue glass was supposed to be in the left window  but was removed over the summer to let in fresh air (notice the metal tubing used to hold up the window). But so annoying that the hoarder would match window knick knacks but not curtains. What was she thinking! (Really, I'm just mad because now I know I'll be discovered and have to give all the blue glass back.)