When you drink a lot of coffee on a daily basis, this has the added side effect of considerable mug ownership. In my kitchen cupboard, the huddle of mugs is reaching the point of overflow.
There are teeny espresso mugs with cute coffee jokes on them, a rainbow stack of small triangular mugs, wide and deep mugs with type-faster stripes, and a very tall mug proclaiming ‘If only men were as satisfying as chocolate’. I have a lot of mugs and I love them all.
To the pragmatist, this is crazy. Surely I can only drink one mugful of caffeinated nectar at a time, and therefore I only need one mug. Drain it, wash up and start again. Oh no, my friend. No no no no. Imagine if you tried to apply such a fallacy to shoe ownership. One pair of shoes per woman? There’d be rioting in the streets.
My need for a mug support group, mourning those who sadly broke in the washing up bowl, is genuine. Sometimes I get a bit lazy and wait until all the mugs need cleaning. The poor things must be traumatised – and really, really wired. All of those residual coffee dregs stewing at the bottom have probably made them more addicted than me.
I do have a favourite mug, much as some mothers have a favourite child they can’t always admit to. My current hot drink receptacle of choice is a mug that looks like a VW campervan.
The one thing I’m wondering whether to give in to is the Pantone collection. I’m not talking about 50 Shades of Grey, I mean the amazing variety of official Pantone colour mugs. Aren’t they neat? The creative in me wants to deck out my whole kitchen with the coffee makers, mugs of all sizes, coasters and whatever else they’re planning to shill next.
Maybe that also makes me a mug. If someone wants to pour an iced latte into my mouth, that’d be grand.
