Ahhh, morning. It's garbage day. And recycling day. And bill-paying day. So all that just amplifies the sickening feeling that comes as the 16 oz. sweetened-no-lemon iced tea (yup, glass bottle) slips clumsily from your fingers as you fetch it from the fridge, headed for the hard tile floor. A million tiny shards of glass and sticky, sugary tea burst forth all over the kitchen floor.

So, how to clean it up?

Pick up the big pieces first. This is tricky, if you aren't wearing shoes.

Wipe up the liquid, preferrably with something you can just toss out, like that copy of your dissertation or the sweater your ex mistakenly left at your house.

Still pretty sticky, eh? And there are tiny bits of glass everywhere. No really, EVERYWHERE. Can you really go to work and leave it like that? No, no, no.

Sweep the floor.

Mop it.

Burn your broom and mop. They are hopelessly infested with glass splinters, and you need to have some fun out of this experience, don't you?

Whew, you are done. The newspaper is unread, breakfast is uneaten , and the bills still have to be paid and the garbage wrangled. And you are late for work.

How to clean up a broken bottle on the patio

So you've been snogging your housemate, but since she came back from Swansea she seemed to have lost interest in you sexually. You were still on friendly terms, spending time together eating, shopping, and taking long bicycle rides through the countryside. But it's been three weeks, and you're fairly starving for affection. The two of you spent the day together on a bike ride up the river, drinks at the pub, finally returning home. Together at the table engaged in studies and mending headphones (respectively), listening to music, she suggests having a drink, so you dash down the street and back for a bottle of vodka.

But you made a mistake: it wasn't Smirnoff vodka, it was a mixed Smirnoff carbonated beverage, and she wouldn't drink it because it contained added sugar. It was too late to take it back, so you drank it alone. Around midnight she packs in her work and heads off to bed.

"I thought you might stay with me tonight," you said, "or let me stay with you."

"But I'm tired," she moans, "I just want to sleep."

"Maybe tomorrow night, then?" Her face says no.

"I'll see you in the morning."

"Why..." She shut the door on your pleas.

Why would you see her in the morning, if she doesn't want you anymore? This is the bitter end of your hopes and dreams of having one more snog with your housemate/friend. It would be nice, for once, if a woman told you directly, "I'm sorry, Fyodor, I don't want you anymore, and these are the reasons, which you can't do anything about." But you know already from previous experience, people are nothing but an endless source of disappointment.

 You opened the door to the garden and smashed the bottle on the concrete patio, as if to christen your new little sailboat of loneliness, maximum number of passengers: 1.

In the morning, still stewing over being rejected, you survey the damage. There are three areas where the fragments of broken glass, like a metaphor, now lay:

on the concrete patio: various sizes of shards and tiny diamond-like chips;

in the grass: identifiable pieces of bottle;

in the dirt and grass on the edge of the patio: tiny diamond-like chips.

It's easy enough to pick up the larger pieces of glass, but you don't have a broom or a working vacuum cleaner, so to clean up the tiny chips and dust you'll need to improvise. You need newspaper and a bucket of water. take a few layers of newspaper and submerge them for less than 10 seconds -- don't soak it too long, or it will fall apart. Lay the wet newspaper over an area of glass debris. Press it down firmly, then leave it for about a minute. Carefully peel up the newspaper. Tiny bits of glass should adhere. Discard. Repeat until the area is clear of glass. If there are just a few specs left, press celotape on it.

There, all gone is the physical manifestation of your bitter disappointment and childish outburst. Maybe, though, someone heard it breaking outside her window.