The Red Cup
My family, like all families, has its share of quirks that make being a part of it both enjoyable and irritating. Visiting home as infrequently as I do, I often forget , or at least don’t remember to the fullest, the crippling severity that some of these little idiosyncrasies bring to my childhood home, particularly where eating is concerned.
For us, food isn’t the main issue. It’s all about the dishes. Traditionally, in “normal” households the table is set with matching tableware. They may not be the fanciest of plates and bowls, but matching is a goal most of us try very hard to achieve and feel a certain sense of accomplishment when we can actually set a table for six and see that the plates and bowls and flatware all somewhat resemble each other. It takes awhile.
Somewhere in the taking awhile phase of things, we all developed favorites. I blame this on Dad; he is the original My Bowl Is Superior To All Others And Will Not Be Touched By The Urchins Formerly Known As My Wife and Children man. While most men, upon marriage, start using whatever was given to them as wedding gifts, my father brought his own cereal bowl. It is cream, tall and ceramic, and I must admit, is a very fine representation of superior bowlage. However, having your breakfast happiness dependent upon your special bowl can somewhat reduce the authority you might try to use on your children as you try to dissuade them from claiming their own special dishes. In other words, there was no way to not pass on this particular quirk to us kids.
After many years of this, Mom has her special glasses, almost everyone gets touchy if you don’t set their places with the correct spoon/fork/knife combination, and a few have even branched out into the more advanced plate and bowl preferences. Usually, it isn’t a problem. An offended diner has shrieked at most of us often enough to remember that they only use forks with the wavy edges, never the monogrammed ones, and no, they do not care if it’s the letter that begins both their first and last names. You pick this stuff up after awhile, just as you pick up the customs of any alien planet once you’ve visited long enough.
The only time a real problem happened was when we were little kids. Mom bought Tupperware dishes so us children wouldn’t bang up the nice Corel. The dishes came in red, blue and yellow. Now, the plates and bowls didn’t receive too much attention, but the cups, well, there were full scale battles over the cups. My sister, Janice, and I fought over that red cup like our lives depended on it. Bernie, being a boy, automatically claimed the blue one, and my mother would hear nothing of us taking that one from him, so one of us was going to get stuck with the nasty, ugly yellow cup, and one of us would get the splendidly bright red cup.
We bickered for at least two weeks until one lunch time when Mom reached her limit. She wrote the colors of the cups on little slips of paper and made us draw. Whatever happened was final, and the loser wasn’t allowed to whine about it.
I drew the yellow one. My little sister gloated mercilessly. Every meal for at least a year after she won the red cup she would smirk at me while sipping her drink. In time, the cup rivalry fizzled out. We matured a little, and more cups were brought into the house. A few years down the road my brother started to bicker over the yellow cup, not because he preferred the color, but because he had gnawed on his cup, as little boys do, and it was unpleasant to drink from. Being six years older than my brother, my cup had been spared the bites and was relatively untouched. The bickering ended when my mother reaffirmed that it was, indeed, still my cup.
Today, almost twenty years later, my husband brought me a drink of grapefruit juice. He had poured it into the coveted red cup. I admit, I sipped my drink with the glee of a six year old who has finally gotten what she wanted. Jan is half way around the world, and here I gloat.
Congratulations! We had colored Tupperware “Name Cups” that my mother wrote our names on with magic marker. They were for water only, but the name cup was all we could use for water. Her intent was to reduce the number of cups she had to wash each day. It worked. I have tried it with my children, and it doesn’t work as well. Oh, well! My kids also fight over who gets what color cup at the table, too.
P.S. My brother was so attached to his name cup that he took it with him on his mission and uses it in his own home now that he is married!
Comment by Mom2Five — November 18, 2005 @ 11:14 pm
What a wonderful description!! I love it. We are like that around here…In fact, I have my own special coffee cup and if I get up in the morning and someone is sipping out of it…well fine, I just won’t have my coffee! LOL
Comment by Sheri — November 19, 2005 @ 2:56 am
you HAVE to make a page about that.. that is so cute and funny. I always remember having my cousin over and I HAD to have the same color cup as her(as our family had mismatched dishes! lol)
Comment by Nicole — November 19, 2005 @ 5:01 am
Makes perfect sense to me. I have an assortment of special coffee cups. They have to be ceramic, of a certain size, and be good looking…or the coffee just doesn’t taste right. Ugly mugs are for oatmeal. I even took a mug with me when I stayed at my parents’ as they prefer plastic thermal mugs and that doesn’t work for me! So there.
Comment by blestwithsons — November 19, 2005 @ 1:31 pm
My husband has a favorite bowl too and heaven forbid anyone else use it! Its huge too. Mind if I add you to my blogroll? If you object just let me know…… By the way nice blog
Comment by Jess — November 19, 2005 @ 5:08 pm
We had mismatched dishes as well… poor Mormon family with too many kids… glass dishes kept breaking. You’d think now that all the kids are gone my mother would actually *use* nicer dishes, but she doesn’t. She just displays them.
Comment by Summer — November 19, 2005 @ 5:12 pm
I loved this, and you described the feeling so well! I have my own special coffee cup that I call my “moogie.” It’s a treasured posession and I can’t drink my coffee without it, just doesn’t taste the same
BTW: I got your beautiful scrapwork today and I was floored - absolutely stunning and the card you made for Oscar brought tears, I can’t tell you how much that meant to me, you are a friend Lou; a wonderful friend.
Comment by tj — November 19, 2005 @ 7:24 pm
You sparked memories of a fuzzy red cushion on our old sofa that my brother and I used to argue over. In the end, my mother replaced them all with matching colored ones and the fight ceased. Then there were the famous Panda plates at my childminders. She only had two of them, and we had to take turns as to who was going to get them and on what days. Oh the joys of growing up LOL
Comment by DenimRoseDesigns — November 20, 2005 @ 9:42 pm
In our house it was the plates with the cat faces at the bottom. You had to finish all your food to see them. I HAD to have the Siamese cat and my brother HAD to have the ginger tom LOL
Comment by Wendy Wings — November 20, 2005 @ 11:46 pm
Having a favorite bowl is just so weird. But don’t you DARE touch my favorite glass!
Wendy twisted my arm and got me to visit you–and of course I’m glad I did, Lou.
Comment by Utenzi — November 21, 2005 @ 12:00 am
I’ve wandered over here from Wendy’s page and it was worth the stroll.
When my 2nd child was born my mother told me to buy two of every cup. Now that my daughter is old enough to decide her favorite thing is whatever her brother has, I get why.
Comment by sandy — November 21, 2005 @ 3:00 am
That’s funny! My family wasn’t like that about flatware and plates… but we are STILL like that about “our places” at the table. With all the moving to different countries and having different dining tables and going away to school it all got very muddled… but we can still fight like crazy… NO I SIT THERE!!!!!!
Comment by for Joke! — November 21, 2005 @ 2:26 pm
By the way, I also think your blog is gorgeous. *jealous*
Comment by for Joke! — November 21, 2005 @ 2:27 pm
I LOVE this post!! I have a special mug that I drink tea from. I always use the same one, from the Christmas I received it when I was around ten. I took it with me to college and now it is in my house. In fact, I just had tea in it yesterday. I also get annoyed if anyone else uses it.
Comment by Kristin — November 21, 2005 @ 3:59 pm
heheheh “the nice corel”…now THAT is pretty darn funny!
Comment by brandy101 — November 21, 2005 @ 9:29 pm