The Good, the Bad and the Coffee Mugs.

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!)