Photo courtesy of SID CEASER PHOTOGRAPHY Shown is writer and humorist Teresa Santoski.

It often doesn’t take much to make yourself happy. Spending time with people you care about, eating delicious food or buying something for yourself “just because” can all go a long way toward lifting your spirits and improving your mood.

But sometimes, it’s all too easy for that happiness to shatter. Or, to be more specific, for it to arrive shattered, broken into many pieces despite the shipping box having “fragile” stamped all over it.

Antiquing is one of my favorite hobbies, and it’s one that I wasn’t able to engage in during the stay-at-home order. I collect a particular type of porcelain, and few things are more satisfying than combing through the ever-changing inventory at my favorite consignment and antique stores and finding a sought-after piece.

Missing these outings dearly, I decided to search for this porcelain online. To my great delight, I found two antique dealers in two different states who were selling items in a rare pattern that I was looking for.

I’ve purchased porcelain online before and received the items without any issues, so I had no qualms about doing it again. I bought a tea set from one seller and a set of four dessert plates from the other and began counting down the days until my packages were delivered.

The first package arrived with one of its sides slightly crushed, and the tape that had been holding the box closed had come undone. The teapot and the creamer were unscathed, but when I unwrapped the sugar bowl, part of the side collapsed outward into my hand, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of the design.

The second package was delivered unopened and intact, which got my hopes up that the contents would be undamaged. They were not. Instead of a set of four matching dessert plates, I had one unbroken plate and a set of matching shards.

It was utterly heartbreaking. I’m a great believer in taking good care of old things. In my entire life, I’ve only bought one new piece of furniture. Everything else has either been handed down to me by my grandparents or great-grandparents or purchased from consignment and antique stores.

As you may imagine, it was rather upsetting to realize that these porcelain items had survived intact for the better part of a century before they were shipped to me. Had I not purchased them, they might all still be sitting on a shelf in one piece.

These items are irreplaceable. I can’t just go on the manufacturer’s website and order a replacement piece. This particular type of porcelain hasn’t been produced since around World War II.

Instead of breaking up the monotony of staying at home by cataloguing my dessert plates and tea set and finding appropriate places to display them, I now had a new and unexpected project. I spent the next few weeks taking pictures of the broken items and their packaging, getting repair estimates, filing a claim with the post office and keeping the sellers updated on the process.

As part of the claims process, I made a trip to the post office to show them the damage. While I talked with one of our friendly local postal employees, I learned a seemingly obvious piece of information that still managed to be very surprising.

Basically, packages cannot read. A box may have “fragile” stamped on it, but the other packages don’t know that. There’s a chance that they might fall on that fragile box during the mechanized sorting process or if the contents of the truck shift during delivery.

It was, essentially, an unfortunate accident. Despite my previous success with buying porcelain online, I suppose I can’t really be surprised that these items were damaged during transport. This type of porcelain is so delicate, and it being nearly a century old only increases its fragility.

The plates are beyond my ability and budget to fix, but I think I’m going to take a crack at the sugar bowl (no pun intended) and see what I can do with epoxy. And when I say me, I really mean Mom. I’m slightly terrified I’ll make things worse because there are hairline fractures around the hole in the side of the sugar bowl, and she has a very steady hand.

I started collecting this type of porcelain because of a plate I inherited from my great-grandmother. I found it so enchanting that I bought a book about this porcelain so I could identify the pattern. After reading about its history and the variety of patterns that were out there, I decided to start collecting it.

My great-grandmother loved this porcelain, but she didn’t really have the money to buy it. It makes me happy to feel like I can kind of collect it on her behalf. And I think it would make her happy to know that her great-granddaughter has not only preserved her plate but found a hot chocolate set, salt and pepper shakers and a condensed milk can holder to keep it company.

It’s nice to remember that the collection that brings you joy today can bring someone else joy tomorrow if you take good care of it. I’m certainly grateful that my great-grandmother and others like her did that for me.

Despite my partially successful attempts to add to it during the stay-at-home order, my collection has brought me considerable joy during these challenging times. Sometimes it just makes you happy to look at something pretty.

And hopefully, whoever owns these pieces after me will be happy with them, and they won’t mind that the sugar bowl isn’t as pretty as it could be.

Tete-a-tete is published monthly. Teresa Santoski can be reached at tsantoski@gmail.com or via www.teresasantoski.com.

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