If you had brought over paper plates, I wouldn't have used them anyway

I used the above line several weeks ago when Husband's Brother and his wife and kid were in town.  They came over one night after we got off work for dinner. My mother-in-law come over as well.  We ordered pizza and when it arrived I got out my dishes.  My mother-in-law, in trying to be helpful, said something like "oh, I'm sorry. I meant to bring some paper plates but forgot them."  My response was "If you had brought over paper plates, I wouldn't have used them. But thanks for thinking of us."   In fact, she says something along those lines whenever we have people over at our house for a meal or a celebration. I usually have the same response.

In fact, even if I wanted to use disposable plates she wouldn't have had to bring any, I have a cabinet with tons of unopened packages.  I just refuse to use them if I don't need to.  So why do I have them?  I've bought them when they have been on sale, where I could get a good brand (ie..not the cheap stuff that will bend and drop your food on the floor within 10 seconds of you putting your food on the plate) for around $1.   This is something that I always feel I need to have on hand in case we run out of regular dishes.  We don't have a lot of dishes, it's just the two of us.  However a couple times a year we have my family over for pool parties and since my sisters keep having babies, I'm quickly running out of dishes.    I suppose I keep these as backup, just in case they are needed.   I've stopped buying them though, once I realized that chances are I'll never use them and it's rather embarrassing to open up the cabinet and see how much I own.  

Every time I'm tempted to use them, I don't.  I just can't imagine using one and then throwing it away when there are perfectly good dishes in my cabinet that I could wash and use again.

In fact, we are having Christmas this year.  I'm not sure I'll have enough dishes.  I think I'll stop at a store and look for some cute, but inexpensive, plastic dishes that the kids could use.  Then we aren't worried they will drop them or push them off the table, and I know I won't have to use disposable dishes.