Mugging For The Camera

As I was unloading the dishwasher today, it occurred to me that one could glean a great deal of information about someone from their collection of coffee cups.

What can I say? It's hot outdoors and I've been cooped up in the house for far too long...

At any rate, as I was stashing plates and saucers and cups away in my cupboard, I noticed as always that far too much space in my kitchen is dedicated to coffee cups. About every five years or so, I attempt to box some of them up and donate them, but somehow that box never makes its way to Goodwill.

Hm. I wonder what my collection says about our family?

I suppose that the absence of certain types of crockery is probably just as important as the types that do make it onto the cupboard shelf. I have no attachment whatsoever to those dinky little cups that come with a set of dishes. Remember those Corelle cups with the goofy handles? My dad loves them. I gave all of mine to him immediately after I bought this set of dishes. I found these on etsy.

Once my kids passed the danger age for breakable dishware, I ditched the Corelle and moved on to Ikea. That set, while still in use, has useless coffee cups too. We use them for small servings of ice cream or whatever, but for coffee? Good grief. Why waste time on a one-gulper size cup?

My favorite coffee mugs are generously sized and even when empty feel substantial. Most of them are enameled with various stuff, which is where the clues to the owner's personality show up.

I have the expected souvenir mugs from my favorite travels, like this one from a small hand-thrown pottery shop near my hometown:

The group of mugs that says a great deal about our finances - or more accurately, our lack of finances - is the one that contains various mugs from colleges to which we have paid tuition:

There are more of these from other institutions of higher learning, but they aren't clean at the moment. I may have to grudgingly admit that the fact that all my dishes are not clean simultaneously is probably also significant.

I have oodles of seasonal mugs.

....and the coffee cups in my china hutch hardly ever get used.

I used to own lots of mugs printed with drug names from those days long ago when I worked around medication manufacturer salespersons. My favorite was one that simply said: Thorazine. Why my favorite? Go look it up on webMD. I gave that one to my sister who is still hanging in there in her RN job.

So what can I deduce from scrutinizing my coffee mugs? Elementary, my dear Watson.

I have learned that I really, really need to get out more.