Coffee mugs no longer just hold your
coffee until it goes down your throat and gets you caffeine stoned.
We live in a civilized society with too many shopping malls. There
has to be something more to them, damn it. And since there is
precious little you can add to a coffee mug which won't make you look
like a nerd, an unholy plot was hatched to market it as The Perfect
Gift for All Occasions.
Birthday? Birthday mug. Anniversary?
Anniversary mug. School farewell? Farewell mug. Sick friend in the
hospital? Horlicks mug. (Free with every 1 kg pack of horlicks.) This
trend hasn't just cropped up out of the blue, mind you. For instance, my parents
firmly believe that newly married couples find nothing so infinitely
useful as a clock. They go to every wedding with a neatly gift
wrapped wall clock imagining that it's going to grace the couple's
living room wall forever. FOREVER. Coffee mugs have become the new
clocks.
It's been proved that madness is hereditary. So it was inevitable that I gifted people coffee mugs for a
long time, happy in the knowledge that they're going to put it to
good use. I was all, 'You can drink stuff from it. You can use it as
a pen holder. You can keep it in the shelf and admire it. Or hit a
serial killer on the head with it if you happen to come across one.
It's a life saver!' It's obvious delusion runs in the family.
Anyway, one day I realized how truly
lame coffee mugs are (and not a moment too late). Fast forward to the
present: what happens now? Le Boyfriend asks me to buy one for him.
And I tried. I really did. I
literally spent hours keeping a keen eye out for a decent mug, but
everywhere I looked, the horrors ranged from dreadful pink mugs
littered with red hearts to some truly abominable mugs with animal
faces projecting from the surface which would have given children
nightmares.
Even worse are the zodiac mugs and the
ones which tell you how romantic and talented you are based on the
first letter of your name. Because whatever my zodiac sign might say,
I am not a social climber. I'm more like a social disaster. Just ask
my mother. And I think my mother knows me better(sadly for her) than
a strange coffee mug I've just met.
In the end, my Better Half got tired of
not getting caffeine stoned at his desk for three weeks and bought a mug from
Coffee Day. Huh. You'd think I would have thought of that.
Behold, le BF's coffee mug! (And his amazing sidekick, the photo bombing keyboard!)
