The Great Coffee Mug Intervention

This weekend was a moving experience (pun intended). Many friends who owed me (or whom I now owe) favors came to help upgrade from House to HouseXP.

Thus was the need for the Great Coffee Mug Intervention.

Suzan and I are using moving as the motivation to throw out a lot of old junk. Old files, posters we never framed, clothes we never wear. But one man’s junk is another man’s coffee mug collection … and somehow collecting coffee mugs runs in the family.

My grandfather was a Scotsman, and the Scottish are legendary packrats. Even after living a harsh life in the Highlands, moving to the new world, escaping the tyrrany of their opressors and achieving a better quality of life, those descended from “Red” Hector MacNeil still hoarde like squirrels gathering nuts before the harsh winter comes.

My grandfather was a legendary hoarder. Cleaning out his house was like uncovering a lost Sam’s club supply truck … bundles of tape, packs of batteries, lemon packets from KFC, canned foods, and all manner of free pens. My mother also carried the genetic trait, teaching pledge candidates of her sorority to pilfer napkins from the college cafeteria to build their float. Of course, I keep my own supply of hoarded random components … motherboards, speakers, gizmos, gadgets, pens and coffee mugs.

I remember the confrontation my father & mother had when I was younger, clearing out the coffee mugs. Unlike the current trend of free pens & sticky notes, technical tradeshows in my father’s day provided free mugs as a booth giveway. He had dozens of them, many labeled with tacky puns about electrical shorts or random company logos. The confrontation was simple: Mom wanted the mugs gone, Dad did not. Peace would not return to Parkwood Lane until the release of the mugs was negotiated.

Fast forward to present day … I am in the kitchen of my new house. Thomas } are helping me organize my cabinets (Amy is orchestrating, Thomas is accessing the tall shelves Amy cannot reach). They are starting their intervention … I now must accept the fact that I have more mugs than mug-allocated cabinet space. There are Bugs Bunny mugs, Serial ATA trade organization mugs, horse mugs, NCR mugs & and the special “How to teach your cat to swim” mug I gave Suzan as a birthday present after we started dating (the one with a cat sitting on a pier, tied to a rock, with an arrow showing how the rock is thrown into the water).

Thomas is looking at me and repeating the phrase “Just let go”.

I didn’t find it that hard to let go, but it was a good reminder that clutter must not come to the the new house. I have almost twice the space than before, not counting the basement or attic, but that does not mean I need to fill every square foot of it with my old crap. The move is acting like a firewall, preventing some unwanted packets from being transferred.

Well, except for the bullhorn loudspeaker … that stays. A man must know when to say no, even during a clutter intervention.

A thousand thank-yous go out to Amy, Thomas, Joyce, Aaron & Danielle for helping with our move. Suzan and I hope our home, food & company were an acceptable substitute for financial compensation. We will repay any outstanding favors in our own special way.