Glass Breaker

by Doug Love

I’ve broken more glass than anyone I know. I have left a trail of shattered and broken windows, bottles, glasses, plates, bowls, light fixtures, and miscellaneous statues, figurines, vases – some quite valuable- even a couple of windshields and skylights. But by far my most frequent glass victims have been windows. Windows always seem to be in the path of objects thrown, kicked, dropped, batted, flung, or otherwise generated by me.

But I was shocked when I ran into this house, late for my open house, slammed the front door behind me, and slipped on a carpet runner. My keys slipped from my hand, flew across the room and slammed into the living room window. I was shocked because the window did not break. The keys dropped to the floor harmlessly. It made no sense. I have broken windows with the mere flip of a pebble, the tap of a knuckle, much less the hurling of a mass of metal such as my key ring. This was encouraging; perhaps it represented a new trend. Perhaps it could mean the start of a new relationship with glass!

But alas, my hopes were dashed when I turned around and saw a crack traversing the front door glass. That made more sense: a simple slamming of the door by my hands translates into broken glass.

As a life-long glass-breaker, I knew what to do; I went into fix-it mode.

Fix-it tip: The common butter-knife is the perfect tool for removing old glazing around a pane of glass. Perfect, that is, if the glazing putty is at least forty years old, as was the case here.

I greeted my open house visitors as I scraped out putty, removed old glass, and measured for new glass. I called The Glass Man (“He’ll fix it fast, man,” said the radio ad); he delivered the new pane of glass, putty, glazing points, and putty knife.

One guy, at the open house with his kid, said, “You’re either a well-dressed handyman, or you broke a window.”

“You’re right in both cases,” I said.

The guy let his kid help me roll the putty into worm-like lengths between the palms of our hands. I stuck them to the edges of the newly placed glass. I let the kid spit on the putty knife; then I drew it smoothly and firmly along the glass edges shaping the putty into a nice bevel with clean corners.

I’ve heard it said if you break glass accidentally, you’ll have good luck. As it went, that guy with his kid bought that house, and they became my long-time friends and clients.

Maybe being a life-long glass-breaker isn’t such a bad thing.