METROPOLITAN DIARY

Ugly Pitcher

Dear Diary:

My girlfriend and I moved into our first apartment together in Carroll Gardens in 2008.

One day, I was coming home from the subway when I passed a stoop full of items that were up for grabs. One was an odd-looking, amateurishly handmade ceramic piece.

It was shaped like a creature with a catlike head on a Venus of Willendorf-style body, with a forked tail that doubled as the handle. It was equal parts creepy and hilarious.

My girlfriend and I often played little jokes on each other, so I brought the pitcher home with an idea. I left it outside our front door and went inside the apartment, where my girlfriend was sitting on the sofa.

I told her had I found something curious on the street and gave her a choice: She could open the door and see it, but if she did, we would have to keep it the rest of our lives. Or she could decline to open the door, in which case I would get rid of the item and never speak of it again.

Sixteen years later, we still live together in Brooklyn, are married with three children and have a hideous pitcher we can never part with.

— Aron Watman

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html