However, that is not what this post is about. This post is about the terrifying realization that I have an accidental collection of novelty mugs.
It seriously really wasn't on purpose. Secretly as a Real Adult I like my dishes and my glassware to match. Please don't tell anyone. But the mug situation is bad. It borders on crazy-lady bad, because I think I might be too old for it to still be perceived as ironic. And yet, what do I do about it? That's right. I tell the whole fucking internet about it. Great job. Brava.
In order of acquisition:
1. Feminism mug (1998)
Yes, I drank out of mugs before 1998! But this is the oldest one that none of my idiot roommates broke or lost over the years. No just kidding, you guys. I love you all. Anyway, at one point roommate and dear friend A.T.M. and I had joint custody of this mug. Her awesome mom M.M. gave it to our household and eventually it ended up with me. Honestly, I can't ever remember exactly what the quotation is yammering on about or who even said it. Ask me to tell you what words are on this mug and the only one I can come up with is "Feminism." I'm such a bad feminist! Seriously, though, I don't even look at the text anymore. I just say "Today my coffee is a feminist."
2. DORCHESTAH YAAHHHHHD SALE (1999)
I got these three mugs - plus more than a dozen others - when I lived in Dorchester. Dorchester - or Dottie, as it's fondly and mysteriously called - is a really fascinating part of Boston. I'll spare you its long history because really I just want to get to the heart of the matter, Mr. Executive up there. But it's enough to say that the neighborhood we moved into was largely white, Italian-American and Irish-American working class. I hate making statements like that but shit was a little bit The Departed up in there. In fact, much of that film was filmed in my neighborhood.
We moved there in 1998 in the thick of a period of real estate market over-saturation. There were only something like fifty vacancies in the entire city when we were apartment-hunting; half of these were overpriced fancy places we couldn't afford, the other half were overpriced slummy places we could. We aggressively sought out the latter and took the first one we found where we didn't hear gunfire during the real estate tour.
I have a whole other blog post planned about this apartment and I'm getting really distracted right now and want to tell you all about the smoke-stained wood paneling instead of the mugs. Focus, A.B., focus!
During our years there, a number of the local residents grew curious about our household. These were the many well-nested neighorhooders; guys who I remember as all named Jimmy and Joey and Johnny and Othah Jimmy. They were a little hardscrabble in a good way. Often they came by wearing Red Sox sweatpants and/or Red Sox t-shirts, and always seemed to have some sort of money-making scheme cooking. In and out of trouble types who had their licenses revoked in 1985 for a DUI or something but probably no felonies (however I'd bet they owed back taxes). Friends with all the cops despite breaking a number of rules along the way. In and out of handyman jobs. The kind of fellows I'd almost trust to do home repairs, so long as they didn't involve wiring. Maybe I'd also exclude plumbing. OK, maybe I wouldn't want them fixing stuff in my house. They were good guys, though. They are probably all still living there.
They had a lot of questions for us, and were delightfully unashamed to ask all of them. We were a big flophouse with punks and other college-age hooligans coming in and out all the time. We didn't have a television (at least one that worked), and dressed oddly and sometimes had pink hair. When they asked us if we went to college, some of us said yes and the others no. It was unclear how we all knew each other and who was a resident and who else was a long-term guest. It was painfully clear that the Dorchester Guys often had heated debates about this. I mean, they spent all day on most days sitting on the stoop across the street from our house. If I were them, I'd have conjured up a bunch of narratives, too.
I remember one day my roommate H.W. and I strolled by and waved to Joey. Five minutes later he was ringing our doorbell (which he did a lot). I answered the door and he said to me in his thick Boston accent: So, aaaaah, me and Jimmy, we wuhre wohnderin: aaaaaahhhre you guhrls bisexual? I mean, who the hell rings their neighbors' doorbell and asks that?? These guys were amazing.
OK, OK: the mugs!! It was a spring day. A Saturday. REALLY EARLY IN THE MORNING. Again, the doorbell:
Joey: Oh heeey, aaaaah, aaaaahhhrree you guuhrls awake?
Me: Not really. What's going on?
Joey: Well, me and Jimmy, wwwweeeeeh're havin' a yaaaaaahhhrd sale today, and we thought you guuuhrls would like to come by and, aaah, check out ouuuuhr waaaaahhhrrres?
Me: Um, ok. A little later? We're still sleeping over here.
Joey: Yah, ok. I heeeeaah yaaaah. But we got some real good stuff, though. Some things I think you guuuuuhrls aaaaaahhhre really gonna like. And it's gonna go fast!
Me: Ok. Later Joey. We'll come by later.
An hour goes by. Then, the doorbell.
Jimmy: So, aaaaah, I'm not sure if Joey told you guuuuhrls, but we're having a yaaaaahrd sale today.
Me: Yeah, you know? Joey stopped by already to share the good news.
Jimmy: Oh, yah? Really? He didn't tell me.
Me: Really!
Jimmy: So aaaahre you guhrls gonna come by oohr whaaaaaaat? Wicked good waaaaaahres down theeeeehre. You need things foooohr your kitchen? We got 'em. Foooohr your living ruuuum? We got 'em. For your ....
Me: We'll be down in five minutes.
So off we went, probably in our pajamas, to find a three-legged card table propped up on cinder blocks with a real potpourri of coffee mugs. Nothing but coffee mugs. And we pooled a bunch of money and bought the lot of them. In part this is because we just wanted to go back to sleep. But I'm certain it was also because we liked these guys so much, crazy personal questions and early morning doorbell ringing and all.
At one point we had something close to two dozen of these. I forget what a lot of them looked like but I know there were at least three New England Patriots cups and a #1 Golfer. Pictured above are KAHULA, Mr. Executive (my favorite), and the rainbow mug that always makes me picture the Dottie guys in their Red Sox Nation garb sipping Sanka out of what could honestly be the gayest mug ever. We lost a lot of the Dorchester Guys mugs in a house fire in 2004. And by that I mean to say that we left a lot of them in that apartment. The kitchen was just about the only room untouched by flames but the silver lining of tragedy was the opportunity to leave behind a bunch of these mugs. The pantry had gotten really out of control.
3. Vikings! (2000)
This one was my entirely my fault, and there isn't a really great story here. I bought this when I was in Iceland because it is a giant ass, heavy, ridiculous beast of a mug that holds about seven gallons of coffee. I know I've provided absolutely nothing for scale in these pictures, but trust me this thing would hold about three Mr. Executives' worth of joe. This was a big fucking deal at a period of my life in which I was trying to hold down two or three jobs and keep a social calendar as if I had no jobs. I was drinking an awful lot of coffee. Thor and Friends ensured that I never had to go back for a refill.
4. Scary Sports Mug (2001)
Awesome roommate D.M.B.B. gave me this after accidentally smashing one of the Dorchestah Guys mugs. I'm gonna guess that it was #1 Golfer, given the theme of this hideous and terrifying thing that for some reason I keep making a part of my morning routine. At first I thought it might have been the rooster mug that had a plume as one handle and a head as the other, but then I remembered the poster-sized apology note other roommate R.F.B.G. III left me that reads: SORRY I BROKE YOUR COCK. So it must have been #1 Golfer. In any case, I still have this grotesque nightmare-inducing coffee vessel. I like to foist this one off on houseguests who overstay their welcome.
5. Rainbows and Hearts (ca. 2004?)
At some point, people otherwise known as my friends began to think that I had all these damn mugs on purpose. And they began to gift them to me! The nerve! This chipper day filled with rainbows brought to you by my great friend R.G. The provenance would look something like this: Hallmark Holidays Drawing Board > China > Hallmark Holidays Store > God-Fearing Christian > Other God-Fearing Christian as a Holiday Gift > Goodwill > R.G. > Me. It may be scarier than that perpetually grinning, spider veined, baseball face up there. And that's really saying something.
6. Plain white teacup (2006)
This is neither novelty nor a mug. I just saw it while digging through my cabinet and am telling you a story about it.
When my friend J.B. got married, there was a table overflowing with teacups and saucers. At some point we were each instructed to take one, plus a postage-paid envelope, plus an instruction sheet. The gist of it is that when the teacup breaks - as many of them invariably do - we are to mail the pieces to J.B. to bury in his yard. And we are to write a story about how the teacup broke.
J.B. is clever and an exceptionally brilliant writer, so none of this came as a big surprise, as unusual an idea as it may be. I took one of the plainest cup and saucer sets (saucer not pictured - too high up in the cabinet to get down today for the photo shoot). I figured that a plain cup would be more easily broken, more carelessly treated by a friend or a housemate. My friend and I drove many miles to this wedding in a pickup truck and honestly I wasn't even sure it would make it home in one piece.
It's now lived in four houses with six or seven different roommates. I never tell anyone to be careful with it or wrap it as one would a delicate heirloom when packing up the kitchen. And yet it is still in one piece. I'm not impatient for it to break - its time will come. But I have a vision of myself as a frail old lady poised to drop it from a second-story balcony, desperately ready to tell its long story.
7. Alma Mater Tomaters (2006 (R) and 2007 (L)
The dumb "welcome to the rest of your life as a doctoral student" giveaway mug from when I started grad school in 2007 and the soup vat style UMass mug I got with a surcharge and my B.A. the year before. Note that despite being the size of a kiddie pool, the UMass mug can't even contain the name of the state on one side. MASSACHUSETTS. That's a long ass word.
8. Darlene (2011)
I shouldn't have, but I stole this from some poor bastard at a White Elephant Christmas Party in December. Mug acquisition had come to a grinding halt in Princeton and I was comfortable with this. I bought some matching water glasses and sets of wine glasses and tumblers. I acquired a food processor and I really thought this closed the door on juvenile kitchenware. I was clean, I thought, and then I really fell off the wagon with this one. My mind said no but my heart said yes.
I harbored secret fantasies that someone would put me out of my misery and steal this back from me at the party. I think I had #11 and there were 25 attendees. So the chances were good. There were two (!) inflatable turkeys and a grandma floral wrought iron and ceramic table centerpiece floating about and so I felt certain someone would try to swap out some of that junk for Darlene. This mug falls into the "so bad it's good" category that often attracts a cult following. Many people eyed it but nobody went for it. In a fitting turn of events, the people who thought hardest about taking this mug instead went for the gift I'd brought. Go figure.
This might be the ugliest thing I've ever consented to drink out of. It might be the ugliest thing I've ever had in my house. The "trompe l'oeil" beer barrel base is really that shade of puke green, and the naked lady handle actually is that neon lime color. Two hideous greens that look even more hideous together. And yes, when you pick up the mug your thumb is nestled right between her highbeams. I can't believe I just said that in a public forum.
Carved into the ceramic on its base is the name DARLENE. This is hands down the best part. Is this the title or the artist? I have no idea. But I mean ... Darlene? Seriously?! DARLENE? It's just too good.
9. Fucking Giraffe Mug (2012)
I have wanted this mug since I first saw it in 2004. It belongs to my pal B.F., who was my office neighbor when I worked at UMass and the source of about a thousand and counting amazing stories of times past and present. His office is borderline Hoarders, at least in terms of ratio of stuff to square footage. Need a Burger King Whopper playset from 1980? B.F's got it. Need retired office supplies? B.F. has those, too. How about a child's drawing left behind by her mother, a professor who quit the university a decade ago? That's there, too. And don't get my started about the box of pantyhose.
I love this stuff because there is always a memory attached to it, and in turn a story attached to that memory. Before the fire and before I started moving around lots for school and work, I had a lot of things like that, too. Now my life is more frequently uprooted and my belongings streamlined. Sometimes I wish I'd been able to hold on to more stuff in the way that B.F. has.
The giraffe mug came by way of another professor who left it behind in the 1980s. B.F. drank his coffee out of it just about every day at work. I'd coveted it for a long time. It's great how it looks so sweet from afar but then when you get up close the mug narrative takes a very abrupt turn south. There is also something so late 70s about its style of line drawing and the general palette of the giraffe hide. It's like a children's story from my youth gone awry. It's the giraffe mug that inspired this blog post.
I was back in Boston last month and visited B.F. for the afternoon. I asked him if I could have the mug, certain that the answer would be no. Instead it was an affirmative, and Fucking Giraffes flew back home with me, gently wrapped in a winter scarf and stowed in my carry-on bag. But before that I had a three-hour delay at Logan Airport, and I gleefully sat in Barely Legal Seafoods drinking root beer out of Fucking Giraffes and eating overpriced clam chowdah.
The unofficial agreement B.F. and I made is that I would return the giraffes if he missed them too much. Or else send "that green ba-zooms mug" in its place. I'm so happy to do either. But in the meantime, those mugs look great together. All of them.
At least they didn't ask "So ahh you guys queah or what."
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