Can you guess how many mugs we had in our cupboard? Well let me tell you. Twenty eight... thirty one... thirty four! That's how many. Thirty four! We may not be rich in paper money but we are rich in mugs. That is sufficient mugs for two football teams with all the named substitutes too.
Putting mugs in the cupboard has sometimes proven to be a dangerous balancing act. In the past couple of years, two mugs plunged to their untimely deaths. You get attached to familiar mugs. The death of a favourite mug can be very distressing
Well yesterday I decided to grasp the bull by the horns or more accurately - the mugs by the handles. I lined them all up, forgetting that a few were still hiding in the dishwasher. It was time to cull them.
We aimed to reduce our mug collection by eight. It was like picking school football teams. Shirley chose one then I picked the next and so on until there were eight sorry mugs left behind. They had reached the end of the line. Among them were four Hull City mugs - somehow fading because of repeated visits to the dishwasher. One of them was emblazoned with "Pride of Yorkshire" reminding me of the years, earlier this century when my beloved Tigers were undoubtedly Yorkshire's top team.
Having just twenty six mugs will be a much easier situation to handle. Normally there are just two people in this house so thirteen mugs each should, I hope, cover all of our tea and coffee drinking demands. If not, we will just have to go out and buy extra mugs.
If any friends or family are reading this blogpost, please do not give us any more mugs as gifts. If you do, then shortly thereafter you will probably find them bouncing off the tops of your heads. Don't be a mug! Don't give a mug!
We used to have a similar amount of mugs. Most of them went to the charity shop when we moved and we just have 12 left now. In reality, we only use 4 of them on a daiĺy basis. The rest just decorate the kitchen shelf.
ReplyDeleteYou might have ten visitors - one day. Best to be ready.
DeleteI have one mug for tea. It's a big mug. It says so on the side. It has appeared in a blog post. For smaller mugs of tea there's austriamug. And conwymug for coffee. However, there are about another 30 in reserve in the cupboard. They all have names too. There's widdicup, miningmug, sconeofstonemug, snalbansmug, lindismug, nymrmug, beckislemug... That's just the front row. I'm off for a big mug.
ReplyDeleteI believe that your big mug is the brother of my big mug - see the top row of our cupboard. Why isn't it called a mugboard?
DeleteWe too are “mug poor” which is another way of saying stumbling over ourselves because of the abundance of mugs. But that is a good thing!
ReplyDeleteThe pedantic streak in me needs to remind you to say “that kind” or “those kinds” but not “those kind”. I know that this is akin to carrying coals to Newcastle, but still.
Thanks for the correction Bob. Anyone might think that you were once an English teacher!
DeleteSounds like you are an hoarder like myself YP. It's great to collect things.
ReplyDeleteTrue but we must keep that hoarding urge in check.
DeleteI recently culled mugs. We still have too many.
ReplyDeleteCulling just eight shows that we are pussies.
DeleteI had a similar mug cull in recent months. Not so much nowadays, but it used to be a fad to put Easter eggs in mugs, so many of ours were given to the children when they were smaller on just such an occasion and have such winning slogans as 'Chick, chick, chicken, lay a little egg for me', or 'Smartie people are happy people...'. I smashed them, made mosaic plant pots for each of the boys so that they had memories of the best bits, and bought eight 'grown-up' Cornishware mugs, which bring me joy and are more than ample for when the boys and various combinations of partners/friends visit.
ReplyDeleteSmashing them and then using them in mosaic art. That's a good idea Elizabeth.
DeleteThere is a restaurant near our farm that collects mugs and hangs them from hooks on the ceiling. They probably have thousands of them hanging above as one eats. The engineer in me started calculating the extra static load added to the ceiling structure and I decided to stop for my sanity before reaching the end of the calculation.
ReplyDeleteWould they like our reject mugs?
DeleteWell I'm glad to see someone else with as many mugs as we have. Actually, I'm afraid we might have more than y'all. I struggle to choose which to cull and often they'll transition into pencil/pen holders for awhile before finally going to the thrift shop.
ReplyDeleteMugs can last a long, long time. Longer than a pet cat.
DeleteWell, this has sent me into the kitchen to do a head count and it seems that I have a total of 30 assorted mugs! Some are favourites and one or two are just lurking in the back of the cupboard. Each day I use one for my breakfast coffee and one for my lunchtime gazpacho, so I could do a cull too - probably get rid of at least half. I don't need quite so many - just enough to see me through to the next time the dishwasher needs switching on.
ReplyDeleteMy mugs don't have a special cupboard, they have to share the shelf with some soup dishes, and the china in the rest of the cupboard. There are some "posh" coffee cups in there too - but in the times of Covid they don't get used these days.
Thirty mugs for one expat lady! Ever considered counselling Carol?
DeleteYes, but there were a lot of mugaholics ahead of me in the queue!
DeleteIs it feeling muggy in Spain?
DeleteHahaha. So funny. I thought I had a lot of mugs but you two have me beat! My trouble is that there are very few that I like for drinking my coffee. Has to be the right shape to hold enough and keep it warm during my morning routine. And, Big Bear only drinks tea and that must be served in a crystal cup only. (Middle Eastern thing). So, it is me and me alone who is the collector of unused mugs.
ReplyDeleteCrystal cup? Wow! That guy has got fancy requirements!
DeleteI went through my mugs some time back. I got rid of most of the dainty ones. I drink one cup of coffee a day, and I need a big mug. It also can be used as a weapon if people get too chatty before I have finished that one coffee.
ReplyDeleteTim had better watch out!
DeleteNot exactly an extreme cull then. I have a favourite dishwasher proof mug but the picture of Robin Hood in Sherwood Forrest is no longer visible, so not really dishwasher proof.
ReplyDeleteCan any mug be 100% dishwasher proof?
DeleteI suppose I'm a bit of a minimalist. We have 2 large mugs, 4 smaller plain white mugs and 1 for measuring out the rice, that's it.
ReplyDeleteBriony
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Wow! I wish that we had your self-control.
DeleteIt looks like you were never a teacher! You don't have any teacher mugs!
ReplyDeleteYou should see my face Red!
DeleteOur mugs are regularly culled by falling out of the cupboard or off the dish rack so yea, I'm hearing you.
ReplyDeleteI bought two lovely handmade mugs from facebook marketplace recently and they make me want to never use a commercially produced one ever again.
That's a good point. Perhaps we should drink from really nice mugs. I must go out and buy a few more!
DeleteThat's a lot of mugs. I have one mug at work. At home I have one or two mugs. I don't like clutter, obviously:)
ReplyDeleteYou are no mug Pixie Lily.
DeleteI had the same issue and my older daughter has made me go through them. It was getting dangerous to open that cupboard. Teachers who love coffee always get mugs as gifts. Over 37 years, I had accumulated way too many!
ReplyDeleteI was a teacher for longer than that but I do not recall ever receiving one teacher mug. The kind of schools I worked in did not have that kind of culture I am sorry to say.
DeleteF's work plce helps support a charity for homeless people near their office in London. One day they visited the kitchen to see how they cater 2 meals a day for hundreds of people and then asked was there anything specific they need. The answer in a flash was mugs. People come in for food, linger over their last mug of tea and often manage to sidle out still clutching it. Back at work F put a bucket in every tea kitchen (they have 5) with an invitation to donate just such as you have cleared out. Within a week 100s appeared. Clearly you are not alone in your collecting activities, nor in your desire to divest. All it took was the idea they'd be useful to someone else. When we delivered the boxes of donated goods (there were also clothes, books and personal hygiene supplies) it was the boxes of mugs that set the kitchen volunteers (former clients of the place) off dancing about in excitement. The simple things. Find a soup kitchen that needs your rejects.
ReplyDeleteThank you Tigger. I will go to Sheffield Cathedral with our extra mugs. A project for the homeless is based there.
DeleteWell...obviously I had to go and count our mugs! 18 in the cupboard, 11 in the dishwasher, and 2 with our breakfast tea. Nearly as many as yours.
ReplyDeleteYou have also been mugged Frances.
DeleteCups and mugs DO have a tendency to proliferate. They reproduce like rabbits in the night. I have thinned ours out many times and we're down to 24, not counting a set of china that we don't really use but keep just for "show" in the dining room.
ReplyDelete