September 20th, 2021

Poor Tim.  I killed another one of his coffee cups.  Dang.  This is the second one in less than two months.   The first one was a total smashola.  I was emptying the dishwasher and somehow that cup just slipped right through my fingers and crashed against the tile floor becoming roughly  5 zillion teensy tiny pieces.  Butterfingers!

This break was a tiny bit different. I mean it's still beyond useless now but I didn't drop this one. I misjudged the distance between the counter top and well, not the counter top. Which I suppose would be just air.  Somehow I clipped the cup against  the edge of the counter. The countertop is granite of course and one measly coffee cup doesn't stand much of a chance against stone.  sigh.

I felt terrible when I broke the first one.  Because he is a very nice man Tim said, "don't worry about it, there are other cups".  But because I at least try to be a responsible person, and the broken cup was, after all, my fault, I attempted to replace the cup.  I looked at cups where ever I already happened to be: the grocery store, the drugstore and once at a Hobby Lobby.  The grocery store and drug store actually did have cups but none of them really appealed to me and the one I actually really liked at Hobby Lobby was pricey!  And my feeling, at that time, was well heck if I'm eventually going to break it anyway, why would I spend that kind of money on it?  

And then I broke the second cup.  If I felt terrible last time, this time around I felt far worse.  In an attempt to right this wrong, instead of just sort of hoping to happen across a suitable cup I intentionally sought one out.  And the whole money thing?  Right out the window.  This time I was determined to try to make it right.  Not just a half arsed effort. Nope, this one would be fully arsed.

If you peeked into our cabinet you would notice right away cups and mugs are very random.  There are over sized cups that say "Queen of Everything" and "King of Everything Else"  and a Jolly Christmas themed Snoopy & Woodstock mug.  There is a plain black one and one that bears a photo of Tim and I from a trip to New Orleans.  I believe there is one from South Dakota with a wild west sort of theme and set of smaller cups (my size) that, while an actual set, are each a different colour.   The cups shelf looks like a box of crayons. So you would think that any old coffee mug will do.  You would be wrong.  Every single mug/cup on that shelf was selected specifically and individually. Even though they do not match,  although I'm sure right now you find this impossible to believe, somehow they all go together.

So I set out on my mission to find replacement cups on Friday.  I headed downtown Venice which is just a few blocks away because that area is a veritable cornucopia of cute little unique shop.  I was in and out of every single store that might possibly have cups & mugs.  Many of them did too.  But at first, while I liked them, none of them were quite right.  There were lots of cups with flowers on them and while Tim likes flowers just fine, I just couldn't picture him waking up with his morning coffee in a dainty floral cup.  Nope.

Then there were mugs with animals on them.  Ducks, Fish, Horses, Dogs and the like.  They were fine but none of them spoke to me, y'know.  We were not quite there yet.  As I went in and out of each of these shops I saw cups with hearts, cups with a lot of words (too many words for first thing in the day) and mugs with pictures of boats on them.  There were tiny little espresso cups, giant over sized - seriously way too big - mugs that were practically been steins and precious demitasse cups.  All of them were very nice, none of them were right.

Until, finally, I found this one:

It's colourful without being of any particular subject and honestly it looks so much better in person.  The handle is sturdy and big enough for his hands and it's just the right size.  It's real china, made in Germany, far more expensive than I would normally buy and dishwasher safe.  Supposedly the handle will stay cool, through some sort of magic, even if you reheat your drink in the microwave.  Awesome. Sold!  

Ok that's one mug.  Now I needed to replace the second one.  And here was my thought process.  This first mug is beautiful and expensive and no matter how hard I try not too, odds are good that somewhere along the line I will drop and break this one too.  So, perhaps I could balance that out by finding a much less expensive one that won't break my heart when I am sweeping up the pieces of it.  

So naturally I went to one of the souvenir shops on the avenue.  And they did not disappoint.  There was an entire wall of cheesy, kitschy, cheap mugs all of which said Venice Fl on it somewhere.  Some of them had fish or mermaids.  Some of them said things like:" I'd rather be fishin' ".  There were pictures of sunsets and pelicans and cartoony things and of course flowers.  Lots and lots of flowers.    And in the end I bought the least objectionable one:

It's not great, but it'll do.   This new one was not made out of china, but it was made in China. I looked the brand up online.  It's sold primarily in souvenir shops and Walmart.  So you kind of have an idea of the quality.  Since the only requirement really is that it hold coffee, it will absolutely do the job.  

Over the weekend Tim tried them both out.  Both of them work just fine and, as my beloved reminded me, it's  a vehicle for his morning coffee, that's all. The fate of the world doesn't hinge on the design of his coffee cup.  But he appreciated the gesture and for now, we are fully loaded with cups and mugs once again.

Wanna take bets on which one I break first?  At least I know where to go to buy a replacement now.