Lidsville

I am going to throw my brother Phil under the bus today. Sorta. Because it's his fault I found myself in the predicament I was in this past Sunday, all over something I had never before considered.

He had mentioned that it might be a good idea to have cups with lids at the Shop for our coffee. We have our famous Newark Keurig up there for our hot beverages. Yet the old barn is a dirty place where things might fall into our drinks, or they may get tipped and such, so it would be a good idea to cover them. Fair enough; I know a good idea I can steal when I see it.

As it happened I was out with Mom this past Sunday and I stumbled onto paper cups with lids on sale. I began to pick them over. There were brown cups with images of steaming coffee on them. I set them aside to study red ones with vaguely Christmas, wintery scenes on them, also with what I am thinking was hot chocolate filling the cups. Another set was green with an evergreen theme. I found myself looking over those and other choices intently, trying decide which were best, making comparisons of this and that. That's when I heard a masculine voice in my head tell me, "Dude, you're shopping."

Guys don't shop. They go into a store and grab what they want and get out. We all know this. Still, I protested, "But the winter cups would be nice, what with winter coming up and all, while the green ones are kind of timeless."

"The brown ones are more like what you'd use for coffee," masculine voice opined, "Although the blue ones over there are sporty, with baseballs and footballs on them."

A second, even more masculine voice then said emphatically, "Guys, you're shopping!"

I coughed and took a package of the brown cups. They were properly generic, and that's all.

The Newark Keurig

When I was young I was very sentimental. Then I went through a time where I didn't believe I was sentimental at all. Now I wonder if I've come a little more than full circle. I'm starting to think I'm too sentimental.

This all started with the Keurig I bought in a flea market in Newark, Ohio, where some of my kids live. I have it up at The Shop, where I use it nearly every day. And I've begun, in my own mind anyway, to refer to it as my Newark Keurig.

Perhaps that doesn't sound all that bad. Yet it's reached a point where I almost get misty eyed while watching it brew a cup of coffee. "Yep, that's my Newark Keurig, the one I bought while in Ohio visiting my family," I think as I await my morning starter.

It's a silly thing, almost an affectation. Would it be a little less silly if I mentioned that I often drink coffee from it out of the Newark Catholic mug I bought at the same time? Yes, I call it my Newark Catholic mug. But it says as much right on the side, so that's not all me.