travel mug kryptonite
I have a brand new travel mug. It’s brown and ugly. It cost $5.00.
Add that to the amount of money that I have spent on travel mugs in the past year, plus the money that other people have spent on travel mugs for me, and my yearly travel mug budget has reached SEVENTY-ONE FREAKING DOLLARS.
I AM ON MY SIXTH TRAVEL MUG IN THE PAST YEAR.
I have not lost a single travel mug.
I have not retired a travel mug because I had received a new travel mug as a gift from My Lovely Wife and she would know if I wasn’t using the gift that she had so thoughtfully purchased for me and then there would be recriminations and tears and I would end up using the new one anyway but with a definite sense of bitterness.
I have not even been afflicted with an obsession that causes me to only use each travel mug a total of 63 times — each use being etched into my forearm with a sewing needle — after which I must ritually burn it at sea in a modified viking funeral.
No.
I am on my sixth travel mug because I HAVE BROKEN EVERY SINGLE ONE.
5 TRAVEL MUGS. BROKEN.
THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING THAT I CANNOT STOP WRITING ALL IN CAPS. PLEASE EXCUSE ME. I WILL NOW BREATHE AND COUNT TO TEN AND HOPEFULLY I WILL BE ABLE TO TAKE MY FINGER OFF OF THE SHIFT KEY.
…
That’s better.
I don’t know what it is. I am not reckless with my travel mugs. I do not affix poorly-made parachutes to the handle and then launch them off of rooftops. I do not use them to subdue escaping criminals by pummelling them on the cranium. I do not use them to transport molten lead to the battlements before pouring them over the heads of revolting peasants.
I just drop them. And they break. Or crack. Or shatter. Depending on the material. And how hard the surface of the floor is. And the only times I ever drop them are on stone, brick, or marble. Not a nice plush carpet. Not on a lawn. Nor a lake. I have only ever dropped my travel mugs on stone, brick, or marble. (For the record, once for stone, two times on brick, and two on tile.)
And they always break.
The mug could be nigh invulnerable and the mug would land directly on its nigh.
So I give up.
I am no long looking for “great mugs”. I am using crap mugs. That are cheap. And I have no personal attachment to.
I am using one right now.
The countdown has begun.
November 9th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
Revolting peasants?! Dude. Two words: Sensitivity. Training.
As in “avoid if at all possible.” The training, not the peasants.
November 9th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
yes, you know $5 for a travel mug = a cheap ass travel mug. go ahead and splurge! for you! and shell out $10-$15 on a decent one that’ll last a year. you’ll save the benjamins in the long run, dude.
November 9th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
But that’s the problem! Three of the mugs were $12 ones, and one was a $20 one! And still! Smash-o! I can’t win.
November 9th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
I hear ya only in this house we lose the lids. Don’t know how or where or why but travel mug lids disappear. It rots my socks to no end with my bitterness toward the mug lid gremlins who insist on tormenting me thusly.
Also, you even break steel ones?? Thats some heavy duty stone, brick, and marble you’re dealing with. Maybe this is your call to invent an amazing travel mug bumper/cozy?? ” Prevent inconvenient breakages with the SweenCo Travel Mug Protector. Made of high density kittens/marshmallows/baby giggles alloy, to encase your beverage container in a cocoon of safety and softness. Especially protective of the nigh area. Comes with free cookies.”
November 9th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Yup. Even the steel ones. Ya see, the steel ones I have had all have a plastic bottom… that gets shattered, leaving an uneven glue covered bottom.
Maybe I need a travel mug with an air bag.
November 9th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
And RJ! I found some of your comments that had been flagged as spam. They have been saved. Comment away.
And you are right. The peasants do need sensitivity training.
November 10th, 2006 at 8:15 am
I reckon you should patent the airbag travel mug!
November 10th, 2006 at 9:16 am
Of course, the airbag may make it slightly unwieldy for a travel mug…
November 10th, 2006 at 11:26 am
you could conceal it in the base!
November 10th, 2006 at 11:44 am
Then if I dropped it on the top?
No, this mugs needs a whole series of airbags, covering collisions from all angles.
November 10th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
how about one airbag at the bottom that then envelopes the mug as it inflates?
November 10th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
You want me to make a travel mug with an airbag and an envelope?
I don’t know… It’s might not fit in my car’s cup holder then.
And what would be the postage on something like that?
(I can go all day like this.)