A story of two friends and some glass

Once upon a time, there was a glassworker named Gwacie. Gwacie liked to try different things with glass, and to fund her habits (and pay her bills) she often tried to sell these different glass things. One day Gwacie listed several unusual little candle stand items for sale on an e-marketplace called Etsy. She was very happy (traalaalaaa).

Gwacie had also posted pictures of her candle stands at her favorite forum, The Glass Haven. Her friend Frostfire saw the pictures and said “Oh! Oh! These are beautimous! I must have one for myself!” So Frostfire waited and waited, and as soon as she saw her favorite candle stand in Gwacie’s Etsy store, she POUNCED on it and purchased it. Gwacie was even happier (Laadaatralaa!!).

When she was packing up the candle stand for her friend, Gwacie noticed that some of the fused glass seemed a little too sharp. “I can’t send this to another glass person, for by these errors they will know all my inner flaws, weaknesses and personal short comings when they see this piece. ” she thought. “No problem, I will just pop it back into the kiln and soften those parts up a bit.” And so she did.

“CRACK!” went the kiln. “What was that?” wondered Gwacie. The piece had cracked in half! Tsk tsk, stupid Gwacie. Why must she always doubt her work and allow her ego to run her actions? Gwacie worried. Should she just tell her friend? She had an idea. “I will make another one, a BETTER one” she thought. And so she did. “CRACK!” went the kiln again. “Good grief, ” thought Gwacie “this could make a girl say bad words.” She tried again, this time with success.

But though it was very nice, this new candle stand, in the same colors and the same patterns as the first, it was not the same. Gwacie knew she would have to tell her friend of her foolishness after all. “But what shall I do with these cracked pieces?” she wondered. Then Gwacie had another idea. “I will make a surprise for my friend and I will send it with her new candle stand.” she thought. “Perhaps she will be so pleased by this extra surprise that she will not mind too much that her candle stand is a little different from the one that she originally ordered!”

Gwacie excitedly worked and worked on this idea for the cracked pieces and she eventually finished, but it was now one day later than her planned shipping date. Gwacie knew, that once again, she would have to confess her mistake and tell her friend that she was tardy on the package shipping. Poor Gwacie just kept facing one self-created trial after another.

After much bubble wrapping and taping and padding, Gwacie loaded the box and weighed it. “Oh my gosh” she thought, “I can send this for less than I charged in my listing!” She felt her face going red. “I will simply have to refund some money to my friend and explain the difference in shipping.” Would the list of needed explanations to her friend ever end? How many mistakes would poor Gwacie have to tell her good glass friend that she made? “Oh dear” she thought, “surely my friend will see me for the true fool I really am now. I shall make elaborate plans to move to the Netherlands and take up a quiet life of goat milking. It’s the only way my fragile ego will survive this disaster.”

(to be continued…)

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