For me — and I imagine for a great many cubicle dwellers — my coffee mug is the single most important personal item in my cubicle. It comes with me to meetings. It sits beside my monitor and watches over my work. I provides me with a bit of comfort in an otherwise sterile veal-fattening pen. This is why I proceed carefully when I need a new one.
My last one suffered terribly in the dishwasher — the hot water flaked off most of the outer glaze, leaving it sad and disfigured. I respectfully retired it and set about letting another one choose me.
The coffee mug — the right coffee mug — will be the one that unexpectedly appears in my life and feels right. I feel the same way about pets and plants too. They have to just fall into my world and thereby choose themselves.
While in Steveston recently, I visited a little café, where I found myself standing in line for a bit. There, beside me on the shelf, was an array of plastic and aluminum beauties. They were two-layer, thermal mugs with the café’s logo on the side. It was fate. I grabbed a box, and without checking the colour inside, I bought it.
When it turned out to be red, I sat and frowned over the result. Sure my mug had to pick me, but why did a red one have to pick me? I’m not enchanted with red things in general — I drive a red car but it too chose me and not the other way around. Should I accept fate and keep the red one or should I exchange it for the silver one?
In the end, I exchanged it. I wonder if it makes a difference, and does it care that I rejected its sibling in favour if the colourless one. It’s not the one that chose me. The mug that was destined for me is now in someone else’s hands. And this one — maybe this one was destined for someone else. I’ve meddled in things that are greater than me. I yanked this mug from the hands of fate and will inevitably pay the price.
If something starts to go terribly wrong with my current projects, I’ll know what to blame for it.