I didn’t grow up drinking coffee.  It entered somewhere before marriage.  While I still don’t have a strong love affair with coffee, it is part of my morning routine.  I will do everything possible to avoid drinking coffee black.  And, if creamer or a donut is not available on the side, I am likely to add some sugar.

My normal routine is a bagel or toast with peanut butter along with my 2 cups of coffee.  That is what makes this mug so special.  When my wife drinks from her little mug, she is getting very near “one cup” of coffee.  This mug swallows 2+ cups of her coffee cup.  When I drink two of these mugs, I am drinking almost half a pot of coffee.  I assign one cup to each piece of toast or each side of the bagel.  That is how I do it.

This mug said goodbye to one of its siblings today.  When they started, they were a set of quadruplets.  Romantically, I could say my wife got these mugs for me as we spent our first Christmas together.  She hoped its impressive depths would make me addicted to coffee for the duration of my earthly existence.  As of today, only one sibling remains.  Today’s accident was my fault.  To avoid doing dishes, I creatively stacked the dishes on the counter.  When my wife came into the kitchen, she accidentally bumped my stack.  I could say my deceased mug was a hero and sacrificed himself for others, but we all know that is not true.  He became another statistic.  I have no recollection of how the first sibling died.  The previous sibling was bumped, and it no longer had a grip on its handle.  Because I could not let go, I glued the handle back on the mug.  It was a poor repair job.  It saddened me every time I lustily drank coffee from its incredible reservoir of caffeine.  After too many repairs and possibly a stern talk from one of my children, I let it go.

Now, there is only one.  Other mugs entered my life as just a “one”.  Knowing I started with 4 of these mugs and am now eulogizing the three that are no longer in my life, I am saddened.  My immediate response when I heard the crockery breaking was, “No.  Darn.  That is too bad.”  Since the rest of the day had not been great, the shattering of the mug brought me back to reality.  Even though these mugs escorted me into my coffee addiction, they are just mugs.  I have plenty of love to share with the mugs who will lobby for my affections.  With a new Mrs. Baird Bread Store (The factory store on the south side of Fort Worth was a socially-distanced success) available to provide my coffee its morning company, I have much to be thankful for.