Why It Needs To Be A Paisley Mug

You know the score! You open your mug cupboard – only it’s not known as a mug cupboard – it’s known as anything but a mug cupboard – even though the mainly used shelf is stuffed full of mugs.

You choose which one to use – it is always the same one. Maybe it is your team’s mug – maybe it’s the one you received from the boyfriend you had before your husband – maybe your parents brought it back from a holiday, and it just reminds you of them – or maybe it’s just the one that holds the most coffee or tea.

It’s the last one – isn’t it? Let’s face it, who wants to use a small mug?

You use your small mugs for visitors you don’t want to stay too long – or if you are down to your last clean mug.

This also works the other way when you are the visitor. If you visit someone, and you are given a small mug, then you are not welcome. So, drink your little drink and get on your way. But don’t get too offended – it probably says more about your host than it does you – unless, of course, you get tiny mugs everywhere you go.

Then it’s time to take a close look at yourself, and your host’s kitchen – particularly their sink (if there is one) and their dishwasher (if there is one). If there is neither, you probably don’t want to associate with the person, anyway – just leave! If there is a sink and/or dishwasher, and it is full of large mugs, then that may be the reason you are receiving the small mug.

But, if the ‘mug shelf’ has clean large mugs, then your initial paranoia will have been justified. It means you are just not popular, and by insisting that you inspect your host’s kitchen, you have probably added to your unpopularity.

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If you are like us at Just Paisley– and fortunately for you, that is unlikely – you will look in your mug cupboard and see a selection of various unrelated mugs. It will be an utter hodge-podge. There will be the soppy ‘Friends Stay Together Forever, Or Until One Cheats With The Other’s Partner’ mug, or the Santa mug, which will not be used, even at Christmas (because it is too small).

There will be the remains of the set of 6 with yellow and green flowers – thankfully reduced to 2 – through natural wastage and being broken at opportune moments.

There will be the horoscope mug which says your star sign always makes the best lover – and this is the one you always use when you have visitors. (You will catch yourself looking at your partner’s friend looking at you and wondering if it is true.)

Then you decide – and not before time – that some of these mugs really need to go. You empty the ‘mug cupboard’, and remove the excess mugs that have infiltrated their way into the ‘glasses cupboard’. Let’s face it, you don’t need too many glasses unless you are throwing a party. At this point, you can ask your neighbours if you can borrow a few glasses from them.

The downside to this is that you will probably need to invite those neighbours to the party as well. And if it turns out they only have 2 glasses, then you will be no further forward – other than having to borrow 2 chairs for them to sit on.

If it turns out they don’t have any suitable chairs (and armchairs are not considered suitable), then you will need to approach some other neighbours – whom you will feel obliged to invite – and if they have only up to 2 glasses and fewer than 4 chairs, then you are on your way to having a street party.

Of course, an alternative to inviting neighbours who might or might not have some glasses, is to use the never-used Christmas mugs. This will involve supplying latecomers to the party with warmed-up Merlot, with some black pepper sprinkled on it. Just tell them it is eggnog and is being served in the spirit of the season. You might need to tell them it is being served in ‘The Spirit of Christmas’ if it is May. If it is November or December, you’ll be okay. If it is October, you are probably stretching it, but if the stores can do it, so can you.

Mugs can also provide a great way of reminding people of their status at a party. Your boss always gets the ‘Head Honcho’ coffee mug – even when you normally use it to bolster your fragile self-confidence within your own home.

You should always give the ‘My Other Mug Is A Ferrari’ mug to someone who thinks they are better than the rest of the assembled guests. It will give you and everyone else a legitimate reason for laughing at them, and there’s nothing they can do about it.

Give the ‘World’s Best Dad’ mug to yourself, even if you are not yet a father – because you will be! And if you are not a man, still give yourself it, because, with the speed at which technology is progressing, you probably will be, at some point.

Mugs are something that people become attached to – particularly if they are the butt of a joke by the office prankster. Superglue is no fun – it is not meant to be! And while our collection of mugs can accumulate for different reasons – there always comes a point where we need to say, ‘enough is enough’.

There are probably mugs in that cupboard or hanging off that mug tree, that are just never used. Not just by you, but by anyone in your home. So, maybe it’s time to mug a few mugs. Obviously, not the ones you really love – but the ones who are there under false pretences, the ones who have overstayed their welcome, the ones who take your hospitality but are giving nothing back in return.

But what do you do with those mugs that are on their way out? Well, the great thing about mugs is that they tend to retain all of their intrinsic qualities. Some mugs just don’t age – they are the Dorian Gray mugs.

What you should do with excess mugs

1. Sell them as a job lot on eBay

   
   

If you sell them on eBay, believe me, someone will look at the photo and make themselves certain that one of the mugs at the back is a Chinese one from the 16th-century Qing dynasty – and will offer a stupid amount of money for it. (Pity there weren’t two of them and then you would be retiring). The funny thing is that the winning bidder still won’t believe it when they are subsequently told that the ‘Qing’ mug was actually part of a long-discontinued set originally sold in TK Maxx.

2. Give them away to a charity shop

   
   

If you give them away to charity, you will need to notify all of your friends that you have done so, or else they will buy one of your donations for you as a gift – to create a matching pair for the one they think you still have at home.

3. Use them as plant pots

   
   

Use them as plant pots - either in your garden, or window box – but make sure they are small plants that will remain small once fully grown. And if your plants do outgrow them, don’t be tempted to reinstate them to your mug collection as a thank-you for their plant-growing assistance effort

4.       Exploit the party – idiot!

This party you are having – make it a White Elephant party. Yes, that is a party where everyone comes along with something they want to get rid of, and where they need to exchange it for something that someone else has brought along. (There will always be someone who misunderstands the concept and who will come along dressed as a white elephant. Fortunately, on this particular occasion, this person will not be you!)

If this White Elephant party coincides with Christmas, then your luck will be in because you will also be able to give Christmas gifts to people who you normally don’t – and that will account for even more excess mugs. (And here again is an added bonus – some of your guests will be so shamed that they will return to your home before Christmas with ‘your’ gift, or will roll up after Christmas with ‘your’ gift, citing they were so busy before Christmas, while they give you ‘your’ gift, which just happens to be ‘their’ most unwanted gift.)

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The net result of a periodic mug purge is that it enables you to start a Paisley mug collection.

And if you are starting that Paisley journey – and you really should – you should take every opportunity to tell anyone you meet what you are doing. You can even tell strangers you have met that you have bids in for some Paisley mugs, but won’t know if you have won until the weekend.

This will make you more interesting in the eyes of the people you are telling this to. They will admire your tenacity and will want to know you until at least the weekend – to find out if you have won with your bids. Regardless of whether you then tell them whether you won or lost, you will have ultimately lost.

Firstly, if you say you have lost, then they will drop you as a stingy, not committed to your cause loser. Or, if you say you won, then they will drop you as the liar you are when you cannot produce the mugs you say you won. Either way, you will eventually get what you deserve. Do not lie!

But if you think you know better than me, and if you are committed to continuing with the lie, then, of course, you will need another lie to cover for the initial lie. To buy you time, you will be able to say that the mugs are being shipped from overseas. This will allow you to buy some beautiful mugs elsewhere.

Of course, the beauty and wholesomeness of the mugs you buy, in addition to setting you off on a Paisley mug collection addiction, will also cleanse you to the extent that you will feel the need to own up to your deception.

Friendless, you will at least have your Paisley mug collection – and the addiction that it has created (I know of no groups that will help treat Paisley mug addiction – so you are on your own). Before you know it, the glasses shelf will be your auxiliary Paisley mug shelf. And then, you will decide the apocalypse is not imminent and will remove some of the tinned corned beef from that shelf that has never seen movement.

You don’t need to worry about any other shelves being taken over. The next step is a Paisley mug display cabinet or mug rack or mug tree – where the tree is an actual tree. We do not recommend actual trees to be used as mug trees, particularly General Shermans.

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