Fiestaware Cup and Saucer Versus the Mug

My Mug Does Not Runneth Over

I love my Fiestaware cups, but are they practical
when I want to drink some serious eye-opening coffee? 

Dust covered the rim of the blue Fiestaware cup sitting on my kitchen shelf, making the color appear a pale gray. “Why don’t I use those cups, and even a saucer, for my morning coffee?” I asked myself. “My daily java routine could use a touch of elegance.” I washed a blue cup and saucer and placed them next to the coffee pot as a reminder to drink from them the next day when I sleepwalked into the kitchen.

I also formed a little riff in my brain about how often I gulp from a large mug and how the super-size culture has affected America. I resolved to liberate my mug and myself from what I perceived as yet another example of wretched excess.

Choices, choices...A cup or a mug?

Twelve minutes after I pushed the start button at 6 a.m. today, my coffee was ready. I poured the hot liquid into my coffee cup—not to be confused with a mug—and settled in for my first caffeine fix of the day. I sat at my writing desk, took a few swallows, wrote a few lines, reached for the cup to take another sip, and it was empty! I did the instant replay of walking back into the kitchen, filling the cup, adding sugar and milk, and returning to my writing desk in my room. I took a few swallows, wrote a few more lines, reached for the cup to take another sip—empty again?

I retraced my steps to the kitchen, put the cup and saucer in the sink, took a mug out of the cabinet, poured a generous amount of coffee into it, returned to my writing desk, and got down to the business of the day.

The mug wins!

I decided that wretched excess has nothing to do with drinking my coffee from a mug. I’m self-employed, so most mornings I don’t have to dash out the door. My fifteen-year-old routine of drinking a mug of coffee, writing, drinking some more coffee, and writing some more cannot easily be broken just because I come up with some absurd motion that my mornings would be more refined if I drank from a lovely cup and placed said cup on a saucer.

A mug it is from now on, unless I’m in a rather Victorian mood, in which case I’ll bring out the bone china, brew a pot of tea, bake some scones, and really put on some airs.