Ode to coffee mug
Note: This post inspired by Timmy’s “Ode to Smelly Hat”
We’ve been together for many years now, you and I have, eh? I got you from a Town Pump gas station in the-middle-of-nowhere Montana back in the summer of ’99 (no, not the summer of ’69, that would be a crappy Bryan Adams song). Who really knows how many cups of Joe you have so graciously kept warm for me. You’ve been there for the good times, and hung with me through the bad times; never once complaining, even when we stopped at that truck stop in Mitchell, South Dakota during the summer of 2002. Remember that coffee? That was, quite possibly, the worst truck stop coffee we ever had, huh?
Our first trip was to finish out geology summer field camp in Montana during the summer of 1999. After that, you moved to Arkansas with me. I know you hated to leave your coffee mug friends you had made in Mississippi. Moving sucks, dude. While in Arkansas, we went on many adventures together:
- Big Bend, Texas, spring of 2001 – whew, those we some rough hangovers you helped to ease
- Camping trips galore
- Back to Montana – summer of 2001 – the best six-week paid vacation ever, a teaching assistantship for summer geology field camp
- Seattle-San Fransisco – summer of 2001 – remember the Badlands, Mount St. Helens, the Pacific Ocean, and Yosemite?
- Lots of trips to Florida
Then we moved to South Dakota during the winter of 2002. You started to go to work with me every day then. I think, however, that it was during this time that you worked your hardest; all of the weekend trips from South Dakota to Arkansas. Without you, how would I have kept hot all of that much-needed coffee for those late-night drives up and down I-29?
Then we were lucky enough to move back to Arkansas. Now, every day, you go to work with me in the morning and to the coffee shop on campus in the afternoon.
I betrayed your trust only once, with that free stainless vacuum mug that Cub Cadet sent me for buying one of their mowers. What a disappointment that piece of crap mug turned out to be. I know, “Not surprising”, you say “What did you expect from stainless steel?” I saw the err of my ways, however, and you and I were back together the very next day.
Who really knows how many more years and how many more roadtrips you will see. Dozens? Hundreds? Plenty, I’m sure of that. Keep up the good work, old buddy.
