Triad of tumblers

on Monday, March 29, 2010
In its glory days



Trinity of tumblers



I have trouble buying certain things for myself. It's trait I inherited from my mother.
But around Valentines Day this year, I fell in love with a certain tumbler from Starbucks. Something of this nature is perhaps what I'd buy for a gift, but never for myself. I already have a perfectly functioning tumbler; why should I buy one just because it has hearts on it and is super cute? But that day, standing in Starbucks (in Safeway, actually!) I loved it so much I didn't even think twice before buying it for myself. And I even waited in line almost 10 minutes to buy it...and even in those moments, no second thoughts. I don't know what came over me...I had to have it.

Here at IslandWood, everybody knows what everybody drinks out of, because frankly, 9 out of 10 people are carrying coffee or tea with them at all times. We know each other's beverage selections quite well. When I came home with this new present to myself, everybody complimented me on it. It even fit in the side pocket of my backpack perfectly. We coexisted blissfully for about a week before tragedy struck. It turns out that those sustainable cork floors of ours in the grad classroom don't sustain plastic tumblers falling on it. In one fell swoop, it fell out of my backpack and cracked in two. I was devastated. Everybody that witnessed the incident can attest to how distraught I was when it happened.

I moped around with it for awhile, trying to figure out if it could possibly be fixed. It is possible, but it would no longer be water tight. Purchasing the adhesive alone would cost almost the same as what I bought it for. Not only could I not conceivably buy ANOTHER one for myself, but the Starbucks at Safeway is the only one on the island, and I had picked up the very last one off the shelf. There was no more to be found.

I randomly looked it up on the Starbucks website to see if they were selling them....nope. Next resort: Ebay. Yup. I spoke of my plight to Reuben over skype and showed him the broken pieces. I might have shed a tear or two. For some reason, it meant more to me than just the plastic cup itself. For a lot of reasons, that wouldn't make sense on this blog and hardly are clear in my head.

The next week I made several trips over to Seattle. In the back of my mind I was thinking maybe, possibly, with just a glimmer of hope, that I might wander into a Starbucks and one would pop out to me from a shelf. And that is exactly what happened, at a West Seattle Starbucks. I went in, saw it on the shelf, nestled in a basket with a handful of others, and the same feeling took over me and I had to have it....again. I was a little bitter that it was MORE expensive than the first one I had purchased, but at that point money didn't matter. I took it home with me and let it sit on the shelf for a few days. I couldn't seem to start using it. I finally gave up staring at it and started using it again. People asked me how the cup had been resurrected - they had seen it fall, after all.

Then one day, a week or so later, I get a random package in the mail from some lady back East. Ebay. I take the package back to the prep room where we were getting ready for class. I open it and a wave of conflicting feelings rushes over me as my friends laugh at my predicament. Conflicting not because of the gift I received, but because of my attitude and impatience and greediness to get another one for myself so soon. Reuben had ordered it off of Ebay for me. He's the best! When we talked about it later, he said that he never expected me to buy another one for myself. It's not like you, he says.

This is true. It IS slightly out of character for me to buy something like this for myself, but it really is insignificant. It is much more unlike me to buy it a second time. All of these out-of-character actions resulted in me possessing a triad of tumblers -when I didn't really need any one of them.

Now, every cup of tea has a story to tell of what (and who) is truly important in my life.

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