David Murdock looks at coffee mugs

“Oh, no!” I thought, in utter disbelief. One morning last weekend, my day started off badly as I stared at the broken coffee mug on the floor of my kitchen. Everything up to that point had unfolded about the same as all my weekend mornings … until I fumbled my favorite coffee mug and shattered it.

Well, “shattered” is too strong a word; the mug broke into three pieces — two large and one small. But my morning was shattered.

As I’ve noted here many times, I’m an habitual man. I get used to something, and that’s the way I expect it to happen. So, when something like breaking my favorite coffee mug occurs, it’s a real shock.

It’s not like I had any real emotional connection to that mug. I’d bought it at Walmart years ago for this exact eventuality: it had no emotional connection, so I wouldn’t mind breaking it. Neither a gift from a friend nor a souvenir from some adventure, that mug had no “feeling” attached to it, no “special-ness.”

But it did.

Long use had imbued it with some measure of significance; it had become part of my morning routine over the years. Just a plain tan mug with a brown interior and rim — not too big and not too small — that meant nothing to me … just in case I broke it.

Before I bought it, I’d been using a coffee mug that did have some emotional resonance for me, one I’d bought as a souvenir. After fumbling that mug one morning and nearly breaking it, I bought one I wouldn’t mind losing.

Except now that I had broken it, I did mind breaking it.

I collected up all the pieces of the broken mug. Easy enough.

Then, find another mug from which to savor my morning cuppa java. That was far from “easy enough.”

Which was odd, considering that there are literally dozens of coffee mugs in the kitchen. There was a good reason not to use any of them.

Most were either gifts or souvenirs — so I didn’t want to use one of them. Friends often gift me coffee mugs. I never use those … for fear of breaking them! Once a mug like that is gone, it ain’t coming back.

My eyes ranged over the gift mugs right in front of me, and I rejected them all.

The same for the mugs I’d bought myself as souvenirs on trips — once gone, never regained. Collecting coffee mugs on trips became such a thing for me at one point that I had to stop for lack of space to display them. These days, I only purchase souvenir mugs if they are particularly striking or artistic in some way, or if I’m somewhere I know I’ll never again go.

Opening the cabinet, I passed over my “good mugs.” Well, they’re not even “mugs,” really, they’re coffee cups that came with the everyday dishes. They’re too small. Serious coffee drinkers will know the difference between coffee mugs and coffee cups, and they’ll also know what I mean by “too small.” I’d down the contents of one of those cups in one long slurp.

Then, my eyes alighted on Dad’s favorite coffee mug. He used the same plain mug for decades, and he gave it to me a few years before he passed away. I’m not really sure why, but I’d just given him a good mug I’d picked up in a Waffle House when they had them for sale one year. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t use Dad’s favorite.

At that moment, I had another one of those increasingly frequent “I am my father’s son” moments. Mom never had a “favorite mug” that I recall. Nor did anyone else in my family; they just used the first one that came to hand. Only Dad and I had a favorite mug.

Starting to get a little desperate for coffee, my eyes fell on a lonely mug way at the back of the cabinet. Way back there. Moving around those mugs in front of it — the ones imbued with some sort of special-ness — I pulled it out. Plain, with a snowman on it — obviously one I picked up sometime in winter. Since that day was going to be a scorcher, I thought it was funny and filled it up.

It’s been several days now. That snowman mug still “ain’t right.” The size is all wrong, and even the handle doesn’t quite “fit” my hand yet. The broken mug had become such a part of my mornings that I could tell the difference.

So, I’ve got to go to Walmart and pick up a new one before I grow accustomed to this snowman looking at me every morning. I haven’t even been able to toss the broken mug in the trash yet. It’s still sitting on the counter.

Enough chaos of everyday life fills my days that I savor these small “samenesses” — some small thing to which to grow accustomed and about which I do not have to think. New ideas? No problem! New people? Adore ‘em! New challenges? Bring ‘em on!

Trip to Antarctica? Let’s go!

New coffee mug, though? That might be an issue. After all, I’m not going to use the one from the gift shop in Antarctica.

David Murdock is an English instructor at Gadsden State Community College. He can be contacted [email protected]. The opinions expressed are his own.