Years ago, I bought a set of Corelle dishes--four bowls, four small plates, and four dinner plates. They had a red design on them, and my kitchen in my home in Minnesota had red accents. You know, red towels, a red cover for my mixer, and a red knife set. Things like this. The red design went with the look.
A few years back, my dad broke one of the small bowls. I didn't think Corelle broke, but this showed me differently. And when I went online to try to buy a replacement, I discovered they no longer made that pattern.
Three bowls it was.
This is the way it stood until a few weeks ago. I was cooking. I needed a bowl to mix something in and it was a small amount, so I grabbed one of my Corelle bowls. I didn't clear the one I was taking out from the bowl beneath it and the other bowl plummeted out, hit my granite counter, and exploded, shattering into dozens and dozens of shards.
Yes, Corelle definitely breaks. It took forever to clean up all the mess. I swept. I vacuumed. I used a wet cloth because some of those pieces were nearly microscopic. That's how many pieces it broke into.
Now I was down to two bowls. I went online to search for more bowls and wasn't surprised my design wasn't available. If I couldn't buy it three or four years ago, it would take a miracle to find it now. They did, however, have small bowls with a red rim. Close enough, I thought.
And then I saw the price. They were double what the plain white bowls cost. Even though I at least wanted a tiny bit of red, I did the sensible thing and bought the plain white bowls. It's still disappointing, but they're the right size and they do what I need them to do. Aesthetics be darned.