I have an ax to grind with the weasel who first conceived the idea of putting images and messages on coffee mugs. You know, coffee mugs that have pictures or phrases on them commemorating places you’ve been or offering some funny observation. Those are the ones. I have about fifty of them, and I can’t throw any away.
I have the mug that my daughters gave me in January of 1992. They bought it for me when they went to Disney World, in December of 1991. I was living in an Embassy Suites in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania. I had just started a consulting gig at Air Products and Chemicals. The girls were living with their mother in Arkansas. Their mother’s whole extended family went to Disney World for Christmas that year. They bought me a mug. I still have it. I use it frequently. It makes me smile. I have a coffee mug I bought when I toured the world’s first nuclear submarine in 1993. I got the opportunity to tour the sub when I was on the return leg of a business trip to Boston. On my first trip to Arkansas after meeting my future wife, Landi, I bought her a mug that says, “My friend went to Arkansas and all I got was this lousy mug.” I got it at a gas station right off of Interstate 55 in Arkansas. I have multiple mugs with photos of my grandsons. Each photo brings a smile and a thought about two wonderful little boys. I always think about Calvin racing to eat spilled blueberries before his mother, my daughter, can pick them all up. He was a motivated eater. I have a mug from my son that says, “Ask me about my dad jokes.” That one is just hurtful.
My cabinet is full. They are stacked on top of each other. A sane person would decide to get rid of a few. They can present a pretty significant hazard in terms of a collapse or avalanche. They are precariously stacked, I’ll give you that, but get rid of one? I can’t.
How do you remove a coffee mug when each mug holds more than just coffee, a special memory? That would be like choosing a memory to forget. I look in the cabinet and I don’t see mugs. I see a lifetime. I can see my daughters when they were three and four years old. I can see Landi, young and so unaware of the adventures to come. I remember getting lost driving to Boston in a driving rain in the middle of the night on the trip that gave me the opportunity to tour the submarine. I think about holding Calvin for the first time, and about Theo French kissing Caesar. I remember to scan the internet for a new dad joke just because they pain everyone so much.
Every morning, my first conscious act is to make a cup of coffee. I go to the cabinet for a cup, but I get so much more. I look at my mountain of mugs, and I choose a memory to ponder while I enjoy my first cup of coffee.
That first cup of coffee is good, but the memories are so much better.
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