Dad always drank from the wrong type of cup. At work, he liked to sip scalding hot coffee from a tall glass. His fingers gripped the glass at the rim, his calloused finger tips oblivious to the intense heat. "Ack," he complained. "Not sweet enough." A bent metal spoon, dunked unceremoniously into the smoking glass and left in there as he drank, was soon fished out and used again to swirl in a fresh packet of sugar.Emptied of its contents, that same glass sat unwashed on the counter near the butcher knives for several hours. When it was needed again, Dad rinsed it quickly with a blast of warm water from the faucet. On busy days, the glass might sit half full with cool coffee, with a thin colorless film sitting on top of the brown liquid. He still drank it when he remembered it was there. My mother, nauseated by the sight of the glass decorated with coffee stain rings, snatched the glass from him whenever she could, and scolded him for not getting a clean glass each time.
Eventually, Dad graduated to using actual coffee mugs. There was one that he used most - a bland white ceramic one with "World's Best Dad" scrawled out in blue block letters. It had a chip on its base, probably put there by one of the careless teenage dishwashers Dad hired during the summertime. Unaccustomed to the dimensions and weight of his new drinking vessel, he seemed to spend more time mopping up his message from the front of his shirt and less time enjoying his caffeine habit. Eventually the letters on the front of the cup faded, and the handle cracked off entirely. Mom simply rolled her eyes, wondered aloud how Dad could have let it get to such a decrepit state, and tossed the severely chipped remains into the trash when Dad wasn't looking.
Dad got the message and mourned the days of enjoying beverages from real cups. Afterwards, he relied on styrofoam cups with his name gouged into the side with a dull toothpick. Even this new device proved problematic - never sufficiently bottom-heavy, it was easily felled by a strong gust of wind coming through the kitchen door. "And coffee tastes bad in this kind of cup," Dad complained. He growled at us when we suggested paper cups as his next alternative.
In frustration, he quit drinking coffee for a whole two days. Our family generally likes to keep the details of those two days secret.
Finally, my mother, the hero, picked up a non-spill travel mug from the gas station ... a free gift for filling up her tank on a lazy, Sunday afternoon. She presented this technological wonder to my father that very evening. He took it from her, sniffed it, and shook it vigorously. We were unsure of the reasons behind his testing methods, but we held our breaths and awaited the final verdict.
"There's nothing wrong with it," Mom pleaded. "It's perfect for you."
Stone-faced, Dad filled the cup halfway and retreated to the storage room for testing. He emerged, still seemingly unimpressed. "It's okay," he mumbled. We did not persist.
Nothing memorable came of the coffee cup incident. I suspect Dad continued to drink his daily eight to ten cups, and Mom stopped reminding him to clean out his mug, since she could no longer see the rings of old coffee stains that were undoubtedly formed within.
9/18/01
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