On the subject of my mug
Full disclosure: that is not my exact mug. Same manufacturer, same size and shape, different finish.
In spite of this, I wasn’t on the lookout for a larger mug. How could I be? A mug like this, a mug like I now have, that’s not a hunter/gatherer item. It’s not something you can manifest with the GD law of attraction.
Finding a mug like mine is like finding the little baby Moses floating in a basket of reeds on the river: an incredible, precious and unexpected gift.
In one instant, I was just another hapless chump at the discount outlet store, trying to win the Ugliest Shirt Contest while my friend searched in vain for something in the Junior Trendsetters section that was small enough to fit her.
In the next, I heard the siren call of my mug.
Meeeeelodieeeee, it whispered. Come to me, for I am the mug you have sought for lo these many years.
And there it was: a massive, stoneware mug in shades of moss and slate and brown and gold. It was cold and heavy and substantial, the ripples down its sides begging to be touched.
“You think that’s gonna be big enough, Melodie?” my friend teased me, but my exhilaration was impenetrable.
“Maybe,” I said quietly. “Maybe.”
I brewed my usual amount of coffee the next morning with no special idea of how it would pan out, but it filled my mug exactly. No more stopping for refills, I knew then. No more wasted mornings trying to decide which mug would be most pleasing to my hands. What use my other mugs, I asked myself, when my new one had set the bar so high?
They were forsaken by me in that moment, never to be used again unless I had company. No matter how many pots of coffee I made, I never got tired of seeing them fill that mug so well. My coffee tasted more delicious, elegant and important than it ever had before, even when fruit flies drowned themselves in it when my back was turned.
So intense was my love for this mug that I nearly murdered a house guest once for using it to store spaghetti sauce during dinner prep. It was as if she’d washed her underwears in the Stanley Cup; it was months before I could wash my mug without recalling the colour and texture of that spaghetti sauce, and the oily orange film it left behind.
(I still remember it now, actually, though the horror I felt has subsided. Somewhat.)
But then! DISASTER.
One cold winter night, I chose to fill my mug with hot water instead of coffee–freshly boiled, straight out of my kettle. My mug shrieked and splintered, and fell to pieces.
SO DID I.
I was inconsolable, for ages. My beautiful mug, dead by my own hand! I had no comparable substitute. Just those other, lesser mugs. I poured every cup of coffee with shame and resentment in my heart.
My loved ones tried to help.
Junior Trendsetters pointed out mugs everywhere we went, trying to catch my eye, but she didn’t understand. She thought the appearance of my mug was the attraction. (It was attractive, but it could’ve been a plain white ceramic mug with chips along the brim and WHO FARTED? written on the side in Sharpie and I’d have been satisfied, so long as it was big enough.)
My mother kept claiming she had “huge” mugs at home that she didn’t need anymore, but they were always at least 1/3 smaller than my special mug.
So I gave up: reluctantly, regretfully.
But then! redemption.
I knew the manufacturer’s name. I knew the name of the series. If you can buy Ghost in a Jar on the internet, why not one of these mugs?
I found it, and ordered three as a precaution (because it’s foolish to think nothing bad will ever happen to your mug, I now knew) and the seller sent me four, in kindness. (I have since given one away, but to someone who doesn’t appreciate it. That’s a mistake you don’t make twice.)
Two of them are kept at home, and the third is used at work, where new visitors to our office never fail to remark upon it.
“That’s one big cup of coffee!” they say uneasily, scrutinizing my expression for signs of incipient psychotic break.
“This way,” I reply blithely, “I can say I only drink one cup of coffee a day.”
It’s a lie, anyhow. I have some at home before my day begins, as well. That mug in my hands first thing in the morning is the only reasonable thing that ever happens to me before about 11:30am.
You want to get that shit started ASAP.
You have a limited amount of time, so why spend it reading about things that suck or are only kind of okay? Favorite thing EVER is not a review site. We're unrepentant fans, and this is the stuff we love. Hope you like gushing, because we're about to embarrass ourselves.
I’m still sorry about The Spaghetti Incident, man.
You’re so vain, you probably think that spaghetti sauce anecdote is about you.
For all you know, people befoul my beloved homestuffs left and right! Don’t make me link you to the story about my bathmat, Joe Daqn.
Put a heating element in the bottom and this could be the most perfect mug ever known to humanity.
But Kelly! I don’t even care if my coffee goes cold! That’s how perfect this mug is for me!
And where might one procure such a mug? I’m seriously intrigued.
You can collect all four from Amazon.com if you follow the handy-dandy link up above!