Looking back, I have probably emptied the dishwasher over 100 times or more in my life. Still this time I noticed something for the first time. In our cupboard we have sets of cups associated with table ware sets that we have purchased over time – some still complete and some slightly diminished through breakage. Located at the back of the cupboard are all the one-off, two-off cups that are less frequently used. These could be gifts; these could be giveaways from exhibits and shows or craft projects that we or our kids participated in over many years. As I was lining them up in the cupboard it occurred to me that collectively these cups can tell a pretty good life story of our family. There is the JEOL cup – issued by an e-beam mask writing company I collaborated with for many years in my line of work, there is the ASML mask tools cup with a heat induced changing picture – one of our competitors, with whom we ended up exchanging giveaways at trade shows. I have a cup from the MBA program I was part off; there are two cups with OSU insignias that our kids gifted to us when they were there for college. There is the” Best mom ever” coup commemorating a Mother’s Day. We also have a “half-cup” that we bought on a family trip to Washington that intents to signify that this costly vacation afforded us only a “half a cup”. I used it for years at work after some of my initial cups had vanished out of the shared kitchen and it always worked as a conversation starter (even though it was not super comfortable to drink out of it!). While I was dwelling upon these thoughts I looked up to the upper shelf to where we usually relegate the cups that we no longer consider usable but for one reason or another are not ready to discard. This is where the school art projects reside – cups painted by still unsure and inexperienced children’s hands, with big birds sitting on the handle or with a coloration that cannot withstand the hard dishwasher environment. Some cups are just old, a bit shabby by now but still mark a point in time – here a location and a house which we used to live in – and therefore stand for memories made there – family breakfasts, hot chocolates at Christmas or simply get-togethers with friends. Some were gifted but proved impractical or not pretty (Sorry!), but in that way remind us of the gift-givers.
All these considerations and perhaps many more are a good reason to keep theses coffee cups beyond their useful life or even when they are never put to use. I think we have enough shelf space to keep the story going.