Because giant beer bottle carved out of an old tree, that’s why

Our long family nightmare is over

Finally confident that the Revolutionary War has ended and that busybody Paul Revere isn’t going to one-if-by-land unannounced at our door to double-check how we’re serving our tea, we’ve packed up (most of, save for a few stubborn souvenirs) our Ye Olde Enormouse Collectione of Pfaltzgraff Yorktowne dishes and sent them off to an undisclosed Louisiana Purchase location. So goodbye, hard-to-stack-and-remarkably-heavy faux stoneware! And hello, lightweight, stackable, versatile, chic, plain-white and easily-replaceable-in-a-pinch Crate & Barrel Aspen dinnerware! Also: Hello, extra cupboard space! Also: Larger Aspen serving pieces make a lovely gift!

Things I'm not supposed to be openly, joyously, effusively thrilled about:

My dad broke one of our ugly-since-the-day-we-bought-them, instant-'70s-cultural-albatross, more-clichéd-than-gingham-ruffles-and-fresh-popovers, Revolutionary-War-faux-pottery-kitch, avoid-emptying-the-dishwasher-because-they're-so-frustratingly-unstackable, if-they're-truly-hand-painted-it-happened-in-a-bunkered-Asian-sweatshop, Pfaltzgraff-Yorktowne-with-a-stupid-extra-Olde-Englishe-e-on-the-end-because-maybe-they-really-WERE-from-the-Revolutionary-War-so-OH-MY-GOD-don't-ever-break-them dishes. And if he continues to break just one more dish each day from now on, maybe we can finally AFTER 40 CULINARILY MORTIFYING YEARS replace them with something that doesn't come with dramatic visual and romanticized faux-historical baggage and then we can finally eat like we live in 2018 by the time we actually get to 2018.

Two caveats:
1. The corn-on-the-cob dishes are textured LIKE REAL CORN, and contextual tablewear is essential to a harmonious and visually felicitous domicile.
2. The commemorative Bicentennial salt and pepper shakers LOOK LIKE LITTLE LIBERTY BELLS and they're strikingly realistic BECAUSE THEY EVEN HAVE LITTLE PRETEND CRACKS IN THEM and if Dad so much as looks at one of them when he's on one of his clumsy, dish-breaking tirades so help me he'll WISH he'd died of dysentery after being kicked in the head by Paul Revere's horse in the epic Battlee of Yorktowne.

Speaking of Andrew Jackson ...

You know how when you're looking in the back of your cupboard for your oil and vinegar cruets and you stumble on a commemorative bicentennial salt and pepper shaker set from your everyday Pfaltzgraff collection that you didn't even know you had AND NOW YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IT?