This is my favorite coffee cup.
Was. It was my favorite coffee cup.
It was a gift from a co-worker. Sylvia took a trip to California and brought me a gift. It’s rather plain, really, with a non-specific coastal-mountain-urban-rural scene, all underscored with “California.”
The fact it was a gift from a sweet friend made it special enough, but I also simply enjoyed the physical qualities.
Did I mention Sylvia gave me the cup almost 30 years ago? Yeah, sometime in 1988.
Thirty years.
Honestly, I haven’t used it exclusively that entire time. Before moving into the RV, we had a broad selection of coffee cups and I used several. The ultimate downsizing to RV life caused me to cut down to only two or three and Sylvia’s mug was one of them. That was more than five years ago.
Just a few weeks ago, I noticed a slight crack on the inside of the cup and knew then its days were numbered, but it continued to function just fine.
New Year’s morning, when the temperature here reached 21 degrees, my favorite cup was sitting on my work desk (some call it a dining table) near the window. Now, it didn’t freeze inside our home, but it was pretty cool when I got up and made coffee.
As I poured the hot liquid into the cup, I heard a crack and saw coffee pooling onto the counter like fake blood in a movie homicide scene.
Alas.
My other favorite will assume the duties of my front-line coffee cup. It came from the blood bank after I donated three gallons.
It’s only a little more than 17 years old.
Steve Martaindale 