Should we keep on mugging our friends and family?

How many mugs do you have in your house?

I don’t just mean the ones you use every day but all the others, tucked away in kitchen cupboards or hidden behind other unused ‘stuff’ in a drawer.

I counted mine the other day, (sad), and there were 52! They take up all three shelves of a wall cupboard plus those in the dishwasher and the camping set. Even with the usual flow of visitors through our house we seldom put more than a dozen in the dishwasher each night. That means the mug makers have lumbered us with over four times as many of their products as we need.

How did this happen? Have we been forgetful of our stock situation or have we been profligate with our impulse buys? Or is it friends and family bringing us ‘interesting’ mugs back from far and wide.

In the interests of scientific research, and in an effort to avoid a total collapse of my wall cupboard, I have done a survey on the antecedents of our mug collection. Here are some of the results, I would say ‘interesting’ results, but that is for you to judge.

·         Everyday buy and still in use: 13

·         Bought to fit in a motorhome which has been sold: 8

·         Bought on impulse and still in use:  0

·         Bought on impulse and not in use: 5

·         Photo mugs not used in case photo fades: 2

·         Mugs of club we once belonged to: 2

·         ‘Funny’ mugs bought for us by friends and family: 6

·         ‘Theme’ mugs bought for us by friends and family: 4

·         Mugs so old they will be left as heirlooms: 8

·         Mugs in present motorhome: 4

So why don’t we just throw them away?

Well, you can’t can you? Open the cupboard and there, standing in serried rows, is the story of your life. Each one a memory, love, hate, lust, sorrow, a piece of you so intimate that you cannot wantonly destroy it. Look in your cupboard, wallow in the memories, that’s why you don’t throw them in the rubbish.

But, sometimes one slips from my grasp and, suddenly, I don’t mourn that memory passing. I curse and pick up the big bits, vacuum up the rest – and thank my lucky stars I still have 51 left.