I have cups stacked up all over my desk.
Don’t ask me why. There are big ones and tall ones and wide ones and small ones.
There are red ones and white ones and one orange one and one clear one. There are Styrofoam ones and plastic ones. One is from Coca Cola and others are from various and sundry restaurants round about.
I put coffee and tea and Diet Coke in them. The coffee stains are in the bottom of some of them. When the air is just right, you can smell the aroma of coffee. That’s amazing, because with my coffee, I like just a little bit of coffee with my cream and sugar. With my Diet Coke, I like it filled to the top with plenty of ice. I eat ice when I am not drinking from my cup collection.
With my tea, I like it sweet, even if I have to use artificial sweetener.
I am not exactly sure why I started collecting cups.
It is not for their sentimental value, but rather their practical use.
I like to have something to drink while I am working.
Maybe it inspires me to write better. Some of you probably just shot that theory down in your minds.
I have not always been this way, but over the last few years, I find myself depending on having something to keep me hydrated, something to take a swig of, or to sip on while I am sitting at the keyboard typing, in between phone calls and to keep me from nodding off and falling over on my desk. That’s a possibility in my sleep apnea-induced insomnia for the last 16 years. Maybe someday they will find a cure for that malady. I have been unable to find any relief of any kind for it.
Maybe lack of sleep is an underlying reason. Maybe, I kept the cups to count them instead of sheep. Since I also come from a long line of people who have to deal with anxiety and worry, I always was concerned about counting sheep at night. If I am counting the sheep, that probably means they are not lying down in green pastures and they are not beside the still waters and they are probably exposed to the valley of the shadow of well, you know. All of this is because they are standing in line waiting on me to count them while I try to go to sleep.
I’m not sure why I can’t just bring myself to throw the cups away. They are taking up space on my desk.
They are stacked pretty high, but the stacks are not wide enough to conceal me in case I fall asleep.
It’s not practical to put ink in them either — as we have pens for that nowadays. That was a marvelous invention and computers are, too.
I can’t imagine having to write this entire paper you are reading by dipping a quill into an inkwell.
There is nothing antique about my cup collection, or I could sell it at a big profit and retire. I could tell you that someone very important and famous once used these cups and once held them in their hands. That would only not be true, it would also be a lie. Unless of course, you believe the “King of All Media” would qualify as being famous and a hero. If so, that would be me.
I don’t wear a cape, nor do I sport an ‘S’ on my chest and Lord help us all if actually wore red and blue tights. You can’t unsee that can you? I can’t either and it’s scary to all of us. I do wear a throw blanket in my icebox office while everyone else is heating to death. I look like Darth Jason. When I put on my CPAP machine, I might actually look the part of the real Darth Vader.
At least the cold office keeps the ice in my cups from melting quickly — I mean the one I am using at least and not the ones I have collected.
I have not tried to play music on my cups nor do I sing the drunken homages to the red Solo cups that the late Toby Keith once crooned about. I have no use for alcoholic beverages of any kind. My big sin is gluttony, namely chocolate chip cookies.
Hey, maybe I can store chocolate chip cookies in my cup collection.
It’s just a thought. But, that brings us back to where we started. I still don’t know why I started and why I still have my cup collection.
But, now, at least, I do have a column out of it.
