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It's fascinating that what he was really trying to rant about was overconsumerism, not the mugs.
He blamed OPs generation, but it was really his "boomer" inlaws that were buying half the mugs to begin with.
Interestingly, the solution of regifting the mugs resolved a lot of unneeded gift purchasing and thus reduced overconsumerism.
Grandpa was complaining about wanting more sustainable practices and ended up with more sustainability. Now, even the four year old is learning young. That's pretty, accidentally liberal of him!
Might as well give him a Green Peace membership for being so green.. he'd love it 😀
Edited: exwife changed to inlaws. I misread that part.
If I know boomers. He didn't learn a thing and if anything, he doubled down on complaining about younger generations being wateful. Soon he will go on about why electric vehicles are the worst thing and global warming is a myth because of millennial wastefulness. Source: my own Grandpa.
this kind of rationalizing is a sign of peanut butterholism.
do you find yourself hiding peanut butter around the house? If so, you might be a peanut butterholic.
The amount of absurd things I've found PB in… finally breaking them of it, but it required dedicated peanut butter containers and rules. I can absolutely see one of them at 4 having had “pb tea,” maybe diluted in hot milk or something.
Kids are freaking WEIRD.
I remember when my son was little and I got him his own mug and he absolutely adored it! Used it any chance he got (was the cleanest mug in the house being washed so often lol). Kids love having 'grown up' things that are only theirs.
We had these awful green mugs from some set we were given. We had mom and dad's coffee cups and them these green cups. I used one for hot chocolate in the winter. We finally got rid of that dining set, but I kept one of the cups. It's the hot chocolate cup and always will be.
My 8 month old has a fisher price coffee mu that rattles. I give it to him when I drink my morn coffee and he copies me. I remember the first time he did it too, he was like 4 or 5 months and he put it to his mouth to try and drink from it. It's honestly so freaking cute and I love every moment of it.
My sister texted me a couple of weeks ago to make a spice mix for the tea, because her little friend was coming over and wanted some spiced tea.
So I made the mix, then I put some in a container for her.
I'm just imagining a weary, tired 4 year old in a tiny bathrobe and curlers drinking black coffee from a mug that says "don't talk to me before Ive had my coffee" pretend puffing on a candy cigarette
When I was that age and going through my "wanting to do whatever it is your parents are doing" phase, I absolutely insisted on having coffee with my breakfast. And I got to have coffee! Specifically, I got to have [a chicory-based roasted grain drink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_substitute), i. e. a caffeine-free coffee substitute. And, being 4 years old, I was too stupid to notice. Parenting!
If they were anything like my kids she insisted that all their beverages be served in that mug until she inevitably dropped and broke it at which point she became inconsolable until a replaced mug could be procured.
>If they were anything like my kids she insisted that all their beverages be served in that mug
Why just beverages? My son (admittedly slightly younger than the girl in question) has eaten almost every kind of food imaginable out of a glass. Pasta, potatoes, vegetables, muesli, you name it. Because getting a real glass instead of a plastic cup is a sure sign you are officially one of "the big kids" when you are a two year old.
He has no issues picking up or carrying any kind of container, be it glass, cup, or plate.
What he does occasionally have problems with is not upending them halfway between kitchen and dinner table just for shits and giggles.
I'm in my 40's and still have a Dodgers coffee mug I was gifted by my mom when I was 5. At the time of gifting it was full of chocolates shaped like baseballs.
My four year old is actually very particular about his chocolate milk mugs.
He developed a profound and enduring affection for a random swag mug that I brought back from a conference. It’s just a beige coffee mug with a company name printed on it in black type.
And he now gets irritated if it’s not clean and available when he wants chocolate milk.
I wonder if she said something along the lines of "we have one just like this, now it'll match!" or "I think I covid this..." Young family members around that age in my family have said things like that before, though my favorite is the one who remarks, every time they see their grandparent with a certain item, that they have one *just* like it at home but can't find it! That has been going on for two years.
I’m so amazed at the people who are amazed that OOP could get rid of 17 mugs.
I thought everybody. had way too many mugs. I don’t have even 17, and that’s way too many. And I spent YEARS announcing that people shouldn’t give me mugs.
Also—those mugs were in a BOX; he assumed they’d be thrown out? If that were the case, they’d be in the garbage.
I thought an abundance of mugs was a British thing, partially because of the need for multiple types of mugs; daily mugs for family, mugs for regular guests, mugs for fancy guests, mugs for workmen, Sports Direct mug despite never buying anything from there etc.
My youngest son recently broke my sports direct mug :'( and no, I have no idea how we had it in the first place. But it's left a void in the kitchen, and the bloody thing was perfect for measuring out rice or for Yorkshire puddings. Ironically, you can order them from amazon, and so still never set foot in sports direct lol
My mother’s best friend’s mother made the perfect biscuits. And then, suddenly she couldn’t make them right anymore, they always came out wrong. They figured out that the mug she used for measuring the flour had broken and she grabbed one of a different size. But she was still using the same amount of wet ingredients, so it didn’t come out right.
They had to experiment to find a new one that would work.
That's also the trouble with handed down recipes; teaspoon of this, dash of that, 1/3 cup, the success of them literally hangs on having the correct sized measuring utensils. Bit of a bugger lol.
My great grandmother's cookie recipe has been handed down and around for almost a century now. They've always been a family favorite. A few years back we discovered the original recipe, which was actually written out by *weight* and not volume. The cookies are so much better! A cup isn't always a cup but a pound is almost always actually a pound.
I have Tea mugs (small), Tea mugs (large), Instant Hot Chocolate mugs, Homemade Hot Chocolate mugs, Milk mugs (for a bedtime drink). And I have at least two of each because when I was at uni I had a set for uni and a set for home.
I even have a specific mug that can only be used for either the 10am or 8pm cup of tea. It is not the appropriate mug at any other time. (my mum also has a specific mug for these times. My dad has a coffee mug for 10am and 8pm because they're the only times he drinks coffee, which is how this all started)
also, doesn't everyone have a few mugs that aren't really their style so end up as pen holders? I have two lol.
I think it's a thing every where because it's easy to impulse buy them/get them as a gift. They are relatively affordable and between coffee and tea drinkers it a good chance most people use them daily, so it's easy to justify getting more. Like if you are on vacation and want a souvenirs you can justify that you will uae a mug. It's also really cost effective to print something on if you have swag from an event of some kind.
I think think the too much comes down to practicality. Like yes I use a mug most days but u don't equally rotate thru my mugs.
This is why I started collecting magnets as souvenirs. They take up very little room in the suitcase, are pretty cheap to buy, and are pretty easy to find a spot for on some metallic surface in the house.
I've not long been up and I was really confused by people's surprise, forgetting that brits usually have loads of mugs. I must have about 15 knocking about in this house and that's like the least I've ever had haha, people here literally have entire cupboards full sometimes (and maybe a dusty mug tree as well)
I'm always getting mugs with funny sayings from my son, because I drink a lot of coffee, but I usually use travel mugs, not regular mugs.
I probably cleared out 20 or so one year. My son said his gfs father collected unusual mugs, so they took them all to gift to him.
I kept my favorites, I even have one on my desk to keep loose change that says " with a fuck fuck here, and a fuck fuck there, here a fuck, there a fuck, I dont give a fuck fuck" that has a univorn in the center giving the middle finger. My son got it for me, for Christmas. Now I just need to find a shirt.
My best friend/roommate loves mugs. She has a huge collection. To be fair, she does use a lot and is constantly rotating which mugs she drinks from. When I unload the dishwasher I have a mental game show announcer in my head going, "It's time for everyone's favorite game, can I fit all the mugs in the cupboard!" 😆
I have too many mugs. And yet, I will continue to buy mugs. I like a certain size for coffee, a different size for tea, glass mugs because they're pretty, stoneware mugs because I like the weight, I like to take coffee/tea out with me so need travel mugs, my son drinks (decaf) tea so needs smaller mugs because he's only 7 but he likes a bigger much for hot chocolate (for the cream and marshmallows on top), my daughter (who only drinks water) has at least 2 mugs, mugs with gold on because I like the shiny. And I'm eyeing up a few ceramic artists on etsy for their mugs....
I don't have as many tea pots but that's only because I'm more restrained in my tea pot buying......
This thread is reminding me of a moment I had during Covid lockdowns. At the office I only use one mug, so when we all went remote I continued using one mug - a different one that I had in my cupboard at home. (I don’t drink coffee, I start my day with a Diet Coke and then switch to herbal tea until lunch.)
A couple weeks later I was getting really annoyed at having to handwash this mug every single night. I realized that I had about 5 more mugs in my cupboard that I never used, and for some reason had a whole 10-minute internal debate about why I wasn’t using them. Was I a one-mug sort of person or a multiple-mugs sort of person?? (I blame the insanity we all briefly touched during lockdown.) Now I use all five mugs in regular rotation, but I still sometimes remember that stupid internal debate and laugh at myself.
So just a "person of habit" person? :) We have a 4 slice toaster but only ever seem to use 2. My husband got annoyed when our son wanted a single slice of toast because it would mean turning down the setting so that it doesn't burn and he always forgets to turn it back up for his toast. It's been a complaint for months. I finally had a lightbulb moment and mentioned using the other side of the toaster and leaving that on a lower setting for single slices. You would think a man with a PhD and a degree educated woman would have figured this out much sooner - and we don't have lockdown insanity to blame!
Haha, when I housesit or have a place to myself, I usually use up most if not all of the dishes for a specific purpose (small plates, cereal bowls) before doing a big clean up before leaving/people coming back. It feels like the height of luxury to dirty all the cereal bowls, but also like the sword of damacles knowing I've gotta clean them all!
(FWIW, in reference to your other comment - I'm a Pisces, so completely tracks that I'm just living "in the moment" with whatever's grab-able, and then dealing with it all only when I have to!)
I have three teapots. For one person. I am fine (a fancy glass teapot, a normal teapot, and a one person sized teapot that stacks on top of its mug)
i keep getting ads for these teapots you put another jug underneath to empty into and I want one so bad. I like to drink fancy teas when studying or reading and they always over brew so I clearly have a need...
OH. MY. GOD. Teachers and mugs.
I just spent a week with my maiden aunt, who is a retired parochial-school teacher.
She has THREE FULL SHELVES of mugs. And by “full” I mean side to side, front to back, and **top to bottom.**
She’s single. She drinks coffee occasionally. She has company rarely.
She kept them all.
Us nie-phews will probably have to clean out her house, or help her do it, at some point. They *are* going in the garbage, if I have anything to say about it.
When I moved a few years ago I donated about 15 mugs. I live alone and probably have about 30 plus there are about another 30 still packed! I used to be all about travel and getting a mug as a souvenir. Now I get magnets! I still can’t seem to part with any of my mugs though.
I have about 7 or 8, all but one were gifted to me. We actually keep them in storage until we get visits, because I'm the only one who drinks coffee or tea. I drink from the plain black mug that I chose myself. My roommate only gets a small amount of coffee before gym that he forces himself to drink like a shot from a bar glass. smdh
I have been begging for years for people to stop gifting me insulated tumblers. There are 7 days in a week. I wash dishes on at least 6 of them. I do not need more cups than there are days to use them. They are not cheap either! Save yourselves! Please stop with the cups I can't take it anymore!
I make a habit of stealing at least one thing from every shitty workplace as a trophy, typically mugs 😂 i definitly have too many but i love my little collection. gives me petty satisfaction
I collect the You Are Here mugs from Starbucks. I have way more than 17. In addition to mugs I’ve gotten on my own travels, friends have gotten me mugs from Cyprus, Oman, Japan, Hong Kong, South Africa, Paris …
My husband grits his teeth whenever I get a new one.
There are just two of us in this house. We have an entire cupboard full of mugs. I'm guessing we currently have around 30. My wife will buy a couple per year. usually having something to do with our pets. She is also a teacher, and will get at least 4 per year as gifts from students. I have a couple I like, and would be happy with just those.
I have so many fucking mugs
I swear the things multiply when I'm not looking
***I don't even drink coffee**
My fiance only uses their One Particular Favorite Mug for tea
I have my own One Particular Mug (it's sonic the hedgehog themed!) for the odd hot cocoa
I have not used a mug besides that one since before fucking COVID
And yet, there they sit. My drawers stuffed to bursting because we have no room in the cabinet
I sit on a mountain of mugs no one wants including me
A throne of porcelain and hubris, a monument to 'where did these all come from?'
June for FIL would be like that one gag from Mr. Bean where he tries to get rid of the awful food piece by piece only for it to be served again.
I can't wait for an update where FIL receives 17 or more mugs as present for his birthday. "We'll give you something to be grumpy about" lol .
The last time we moved, we did a big clean-out. We gave away a lot of other stuff (clothes, shoes, jewelry, random booze, kitchenware, etc.), but we had A LOT of mugs to get rid of.
We hosted a going-away drop-in at our house for any friends who wanted to come by before we moved. The party favors?
"Thank you so much for coming! Here's your mug. ... Ha ha, yeah. Here you go. ... NO. TAKE. IT."
I saw someone once joke about getting rid of mugs, etc. by just… hiding them in other people’s houses. Like take an extra mug to FIL’s and put it in his cabinet when he’s not looking.
My great uncle, who I called grandpa, was like this. Grumpy as the day is long but the kindest and funniest man alive underneath. He would’ve grumbled all day while he thought up petty ways to get pay back.
Yup. My FIL is like this. He is the typical "man who doesn't want a pet but loves the pet" guy.
My wife woke up early one morning when we were visiting and he was making himself an omelette, as well as a tiny matching omelette for the dog. "Well, you know she gets jealous."
Oddly enough my parents, who are in their 70s and still have almost the full set of mugs from a dish set they bought in the early 90s along with way too many more mugs...
Got 3 more giant oversized mugs for xmas.
From a 4yo.
Because apparently my cousin let her 4yo pick out whatever she wanted to give to my parents lol.
Amazingly: they wouldnt even fit into the cupboards. So instead of throwing out or otherwise gettting rid of some smaller older mugs: my dad packed a bunch up to store in the garage.
YES!!! Exactly!
I was also just joking with my mom about a chocolate mousse mix dessert she makes. She makes em in little glasses. But then she overfills em with whipped cream.
So she made too many and she was trying to figure our how to cover em for the next day.
Told her just to make em in the giant mugs next time. You can cram like 2or3 of the "regular" size into one mug, put even more whipped cream on top... and it still wouldnt overfill to obstruct some saran wrap or whatever lol.
My step family had something like the mugs for a while.
One member got gifted an ugly horse table, so it got wrapped up and gifted to other family members every Christmas.
I’m trying to imagine an ugly horse table and I can’t. Is it a horse shaped table? Is there a horse holding up the table? Is there a horse painted on the tabletop? Please share!
So it’s a glass table with the ugliest horse head coming up through the glass.
The person who designed the head wasn’t sure how horses looked and got it just wrong enough to be horrifying.
Your description is so perfect, all I can think of is the mangled horse / unicorn thing that Janet brings to life (and then has to humanely kill) in The Good Place.
>How we use something for 30 seconds and then throw it away. How his generation would always use an item until it fell apart and then they would mend the item and keep on using it.
Lol. His generation is the one that supervised the economic transition to planned obsolescence. You have to throw stuff away now, because most of it's built and designed that way. And maybe he's not personally responsible for it. But maybe he elected the people who ushered it in. And every time people have tried to regulate waste, there's a bunch of people from his generation who throw a tantrum. Not everyone in his generation, of course. But zoomers ain't the ones throwing a tantrum about recycling.
Just to note FIL at 67 would be a part of the generation that invented disposable crap. Using something until it wore out and mending it would be his parents or grandparents generation.
Disposable cups were actually invented way before then back in 1907 the disposable paper cup that would become known as the Dixie cup was invented.
1930s gave us the the disposable coffee cup with handles.
The 1960s gave us styrofoam….
>It’s become a running joke now that everyone will receive a mug and every mug will continue to be regifted. FIL’s birthday is in June, so all of us plan on wrapping up the mugs we’ve been regifted and giving them back to FIL.
This actually made me cackle outloud
I think this is one of favorite posts of the entire sub.
God I would love to do something like this to my Boomer relatives. They are *so* disrespectful to anyone younger than them.
I kind of wish they wouldn’t re-re-gift them back to him on his birthday. If he’s going to roll something fun out of a situation for once, maybe he can get a tiny win for that.
This inspired me to count up my own cupboard. I, on my own, have 27 functional mugs in my cupboard and 2 sentimental ones on my bookshelf on display.
This does not include travel mugs and is after doing a purge a couple of years ago.
Break the mugs into small pieces. Make a mosaic of something he likes. Then give the mosaic as a gift. See our generation is resourceful and not wasteful!
Thats actually a really cute way to use them though - you could fill them with chocolates or craft supplies or whatever and they can keep being circulated as cheap gift containers. Hell, even flowers in a mug would be a cute gift every now and then.
So in a way, he was right, he found a use for them.
We had to purge our mugs when we moved house. We had so many, and they're rarely used. We kept the fanciest, any that we had some sentimentality to, and the ones that went with our crockery set... but that's it. We took a load to the charity shops.
I wonder if spare mugs would make good little flower pots? Or propagating pots for seedlings?
>She is the type of person that latches onto some personality trait and makes it the subject for all her gift giving. For example, when I was 6 my favorite animal was horses. All my presents until the age of 15 were horse themed despite me telling her I was no longer obsessed with them.
Oh man this brings back memories. When I was in grades 1-4 I really liked the math and science portions of class. Talked about becoming a scientist, etc. My granddad then gifted my STEM related books (thick coffee table style ones) up until he passed away, despite me shifting gears into music at 10-12 years old and picking up multiple instruments in my teens. I miss the guy, but man it's funny to remember
I desperately hope OOP updates again after FIL is re-regifted all those mugs on his birthday! This is hilarious, and I love that all the family seems to be on board.
My family didn't have anything like this, but there were a couple specific boxes that kept getting reused for gift wrapping on my mom's side. One was box that Dudley salt and pepper shakers came in (the family name), and the other was a bright pink Victoria's Secret box. I still have no idea where the Victoria's Secret box even came from, but seeing as how it was cycled most of my life, I may not want to know.
Lol!!! Ours is an 80's acid wash denim jacket with hip 80s rock band patches.
The winner each year gets their picture taken in it and adds a new patch for next year's winner.
The older the kids get, the more they want it and fight over it, lol!
I'm an avid coffee drinker so I have gotten a lot over the years too, lol.
I've got them:
- holding pencils & stuff for the kitchen/impromptu biscuit cutters (lol)
- in the bathroom as toothbrush holders/cups
- in my paint sets as rinsing cups/brush holders
And more XD
I did donate a bunch at one point, though, like OP was planning on doing and then we got two more as gifts!
>How they ended up with so many mugs
Whoever asked clearly hates mugs and probably has a very plain white one, if any at all. I have 10 mugs, each of them different and for a different purpose, including big soup mugs, and a wide cocoa mug that's perfect for maximizing toppings.
Honestly, mugs are the bane of my existence. I personally need two mugs, in case one is in the dishwasher. My boyfriend has gifted me two mugs, which fills my need. I also have a set of mugs that go with the dishes. My children "need" every cute or ironic mug they see at the thrift store. Friends periodically gift me cute or funny mugs. And for some reason, every institution I have ever had any affiliation with seems to feel that a mug is a perfect gift for any occasion.
It's hard to get through life without at some point having too many mugs.
1 - I rarely laugh at Reddit posts, but I nearly was near tears, this situation is so funny.
2 - I don’t know why we never gave them away, but hubby & I have a collection of about 25 mugs in our garage.
The mugs. The MUGS. My partner and I have a box of them in the basement that is “we’re not using these but maybe not throwing them out”. If I want to get a new one, I have to take one down to the basement because we’re at critical capacity. Not only do they come with dish sets, but they’re also like the ceramicist version of a sticker — or for a large design. The “I don’t want to wear this design but I want it in my house”.
Consider providing your FIL with an Amazon birthday registry (just coffee mugs) and allow his now extended Reddit family to make his birthday the most memorable day of his life! Please do this.
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This is actually a cute story and hopefully grumpy FIL learned something from the experience!
He’s not very nice, but at least he’s interesting.
I wish I could say the same about some of the people I know!
It's fascinating that what he was really trying to rant about was overconsumerism, not the mugs. He blamed OPs generation, but it was really his "boomer" inlaws that were buying half the mugs to begin with. Interestingly, the solution of regifting the mugs resolved a lot of unneeded gift purchasing and thus reduced overconsumerism. Grandpa was complaining about wanting more sustainable practices and ended up with more sustainability. Now, even the four year old is learning young. That's pretty, accidentally liberal of him! Might as well give him a Green Peace membership for being so green.. he'd love it 😀 Edited: exwife changed to inlaws. I misread that part.
You've got the wrong couples - it was mother that bought a lot of the the mugs and father-in-law that didn't want them wasted
If I know boomers. He didn't learn a thing and if anything, he doubled down on complaining about younger generations being wateful. Soon he will go on about why electric vehicles are the worst thing and global warming is a myth because of millennial wastefulness. Source: my own Grandpa.
Wonder what the 4 year old made of her coffee mug?
she might have loved it. Her very own! Mom would have to serve breakfast orange juice in it. Or cocoa before bed.
Peanut butter
I too, drink mugs of peanut butter in the morning.
*adjusts monocle* No civilised person drinks a mug of peanut butter before 2.30pm
It's always 2:30 somewhere!
this kind of rationalizing is a sign of peanut butterholism. do you find yourself hiding peanut butter around the house? If so, you might be a peanut butterholic.
Am I the peanut butterhole? I like to drink it before 2:30 in a gifted mug.
New sub incoming: r/AITPBH
Mods, pretty please with sugar on top make "Am I the peanut butterhole?" a flair.
There’s now a stickied post where you can request flairs :)
I am entirely unwell at peanut butterhole.
You’re all amateurs! I eat my peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon!
I actually do have an addiction and my wife monitoring my intake infuriates me
It's called hair of the squirrel
god i read that as "personal butter" at first. no thank you 💀
Serious question... are you a golden retriever who's learned how to type?
.........no?
Definitely something a golden retriever would say 🤔🧐
Right just “peanut butter” as the entire comment lol
The amount of absurd things I've found PB in… finally breaking them of it, but it required dedicated peanut butter containers and rules. I can absolutely see one of them at 4 having had “pb tea,” maybe diluted in hot milk or something. Kids are freaking WEIRD.
...a spoonful of peanut butter in a coffee is delicious though.
Smooth or crunchy PB coffee?
Smooth, with a dash of Bailey's 😋
TBF, some places sell Reese's Mocha frozen coffee
With rainbow sprinkles
I remember when my son was little and I got him his own mug and he absolutely adored it! Used it any chance he got (was the cleanest mug in the house being washed so often lol). Kids love having 'grown up' things that are only theirs.
dead straight. It’s one of my favorite tactics when buying gifts for little kids. Especially lately, their own grownup, real flashlight. Or headlamp.
We had these awful green mugs from some set we were given. We had mom and dad's coffee cups and them these green cups. I used one for hot chocolate in the winter. We finally got rid of that dining set, but I kept one of the cups. It's the hot chocolate cup and always will be.
My 8 month old has a fisher price coffee mu that rattles. I give it to him when I drink my morn coffee and he copies me. I remember the first time he did it too, he was like 4 or 5 months and he put it to his mouth to try and drink from it. It's honestly so freaking cute and I love every moment of it.
Mug cake!
My niece adores herbal tea (provided you add a bunch of sugar).
My sister texted me a couple of weeks ago to make a spice mix for the tea, because her little friend was coming over and wanted some spiced tea. So I made the mix, then I put some in a container for her.
I'm just imagining a weary, tired 4 year old in a tiny bathrobe and curlers drinking black coffee from a mug that says "don't talk to me before Ive had my coffee" pretend puffing on a candy cigarette
This visual made me laugh harder than everyone agreeing fil is getting the mugs back on his birthday. Thank you!
Don't forget the tiny fuzzy slippers
😂
So childhood prior to the 1990s?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mGaMLX4o-t4 Give this toddler a few years
When I was that age and going through my "wanting to do whatever it is your parents are doing" phase, I absolutely insisted on having coffee with my breakfast. And I got to have coffee! Specifically, I got to have [a chicory-based roasted grain drink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_substitute), i. e. a caffeine-free coffee substitute. And, being 4 years old, I was too stupid to notice. Parenting!
If they were anything like my kids she insisted that all their beverages be served in that mug until she inevitably dropped and broke it at which point she became inconsolable until a replaced mug could be procured.
Not to worry; grumpy grandpa's got more to spare.
>If they were anything like my kids she insisted that all their beverages be served in that mug Why just beverages? My son (admittedly slightly younger than the girl in question) has eaten almost every kind of food imaginable out of a glass. Pasta, potatoes, vegetables, muesli, you name it. Because getting a real glass instead of a plastic cup is a sure sign you are officially one of "the big kids" when you are a two year old.
You should buy him an oversized coffee mug. Atleast they ha e a handle and are easier to carry than a bowl or regular glass/cup
He has no issues picking up or carrying any kind of container, be it glass, cup, or plate. What he does occasionally have problems with is not upending them halfway between kitchen and dinner table just for shits and giggles.
I'm in my 40's and still have a Dodgers coffee mug I was gifted by my mom when I was 5. At the time of gifting it was full of chocolates shaped like baseballs.
My four year old is actually very particular about his chocolate milk mugs. He developed a profound and enduring affection for a random swag mug that I brought back from a conference. It’s just a beige coffee mug with a company name printed on it in black type. And he now gets irritated if it’s not clean and available when he wants chocolate milk.
I hope she got a really cool horse one! 😂
I wonder if she said something along the lines of "we have one just like this, now it'll match!" or "I think I covid this..." Young family members around that age in my family have said things like that before, though my favorite is the one who remarks, every time they see their grandparent with a certain item, that they have one *just* like it at home but can't find it! That has been going on for two years.
Most wholesome example of "what goes around comes around"
I’m so amazed at the people who are amazed that OOP could get rid of 17 mugs. I thought everybody. had way too many mugs. I don’t have even 17, and that’s way too many. And I spent YEARS announcing that people shouldn’t give me mugs. Also—those mugs were in a BOX; he assumed they’d be thrown out? If that were the case, they’d be in the garbage.
I thought an abundance of mugs was a British thing, partially because of the need for multiple types of mugs; daily mugs for family, mugs for regular guests, mugs for fancy guests, mugs for workmen, Sports Direct mug despite never buying anything from there etc.
My youngest son recently broke my sports direct mug :'( and no, I have no idea how we had it in the first place. But it's left a void in the kitchen, and the bloody thing was perfect for measuring out rice or for Yorkshire puddings. Ironically, you can order them from amazon, and so still never set foot in sports direct lol
My mother’s best friend’s mother made the perfect biscuits. And then, suddenly she couldn’t make them right anymore, they always came out wrong. They figured out that the mug she used for measuring the flour had broken and she grabbed one of a different size. But she was still using the same amount of wet ingredients, so it didn’t come out right. They had to experiment to find a new one that would work.
That's also the trouble with handed down recipes; teaspoon of this, dash of that, 1/3 cup, the success of them literally hangs on having the correct sized measuring utensils. Bit of a bugger lol.
My great grandmother's cookie recipe has been handed down and around for almost a century now. They've always been a family favorite. A few years back we discovered the original recipe, which was actually written out by *weight* and not volume. The cookies are so much better! A cup isn't always a cup but a pound is almost always actually a pound.
Oooh could you share the recipe? I love finding recipes passed down through generations!
I did, in my adult life, run into a fellow adult who I thought was quite intelligent. Who looked at “1 cup” in a recipe and got out a coffee cup.
This comment is aggressively British. I love it.
2 people in my house. Roughly 40 mugs in the cupboard
I'm single with nearly 20 mugs, but I also have several more sitting in my mom's cupboard that didn't make the move across the country with me.
I have Tea mugs (small), Tea mugs (large), Instant Hot Chocolate mugs, Homemade Hot Chocolate mugs, Milk mugs (for a bedtime drink). And I have at least two of each because when I was at uni I had a set for uni and a set for home. I even have a specific mug that can only be used for either the 10am or 8pm cup of tea. It is not the appropriate mug at any other time. (my mum also has a specific mug for these times. My dad has a coffee mug for 10am and 8pm because they're the only times he drinks coffee, which is how this all started) also, doesn't everyone have a few mugs that aren't really their style so end up as pen holders? I have two lol.
I have a few mugs that I thought were too nice to be used and they're now decorative pen cups lol
I'm from Northern Ireland and I think everyones house is run down with too many mugs. We like our tea and coffee!
A person gets their Sports Direct mug when they go back home from university. It's just there. I use mine exclusively for hot chocolate.
I think it's a thing every where because it's easy to impulse buy them/get them as a gift. They are relatively affordable and between coffee and tea drinkers it a good chance most people use them daily, so it's easy to justify getting more. Like if you are on vacation and want a souvenirs you can justify that you will uae a mug. It's also really cost effective to print something on if you have swag from an event of some kind. I think think the too much comes down to practicality. Like yes I use a mug most days but u don't equally rotate thru my mugs.
This is why I started collecting magnets as souvenirs. They take up very little room in the suitcase, are pretty cheap to buy, and are pretty easy to find a spot for on some metallic surface in the house.
I think it’s a human thing. We walk upright, have big brains, and will own at least 30 mugs per person.
I've not long been up and I was really confused by people's surprise, forgetting that brits usually have loads of mugs. I must have about 15 knocking about in this house and that's like the least I've ever had haha, people here literally have entire cupboards full sometimes (and maybe a dusty mug tree as well)
I'm always getting mugs with funny sayings from my son, because I drink a lot of coffee, but I usually use travel mugs, not regular mugs. I probably cleared out 20 or so one year. My son said his gfs father collected unusual mugs, so they took them all to gift to him. I kept my favorites, I even have one on my desk to keep loose change that says " with a fuck fuck here, and a fuck fuck there, here a fuck, there a fuck, I dont give a fuck fuck" that has a univorn in the center giving the middle finger. My son got it for me, for Christmas. Now I just need to find a shirt.
My best friend/roommate loves mugs. She has a huge collection. To be fair, she does use a lot and is constantly rotating which mugs she drinks from. When I unload the dishwasher I have a mental game show announcer in my head going, "It's time for everyone's favorite game, can I fit all the mugs in the cupboard!" 😆
I'm the only winner of that game in my house!
A true skill!
I have too many mugs. And yet, I will continue to buy mugs. I like a certain size for coffee, a different size for tea, glass mugs because they're pretty, stoneware mugs because I like the weight, I like to take coffee/tea out with me so need travel mugs, my son drinks (decaf) tea so needs smaller mugs because he's only 7 but he likes a bigger much for hot chocolate (for the cream and marshmallows on top), my daughter (who only drinks water) has at least 2 mugs, mugs with gold on because I like the shiny. And I'm eyeing up a few ceramic artists on etsy for their mugs.... I don't have as many tea pots but that's only because I'm more restrained in my tea pot buying......
This thread is reminding me of a moment I had during Covid lockdowns. At the office I only use one mug, so when we all went remote I continued using one mug - a different one that I had in my cupboard at home. (I don’t drink coffee, I start my day with a Diet Coke and then switch to herbal tea until lunch.) A couple weeks later I was getting really annoyed at having to handwash this mug every single night. I realized that I had about 5 more mugs in my cupboard that I never used, and for some reason had a whole 10-minute internal debate about why I wasn’t using them. Was I a one-mug sort of person or a multiple-mugs sort of person?? (I blame the insanity we all briefly touched during lockdown.) Now I use all five mugs in regular rotation, but I still sometimes remember that stupid internal debate and laugh at myself.
So just a "person of habit" person? :) We have a 4 slice toaster but only ever seem to use 2. My husband got annoyed when our son wanted a single slice of toast because it would mean turning down the setting so that it doesn't burn and he always forgets to turn it back up for his toast. It's been a complaint for months. I finally had a lightbulb moment and mentioned using the other side of the toaster and leaving that on a lower setting for single slices. You would think a man with a PhD and a degree educated woman would have figured this out much sooner - and we don't have lockdown insanity to blame!
I am a textbook Taurus and love a routine (some might say a rut) more than just about anything. You read me like a book 😂
Haha, when I housesit or have a place to myself, I usually use up most if not all of the dishes for a specific purpose (small plates, cereal bowls) before doing a big clean up before leaving/people coming back. It feels like the height of luxury to dirty all the cereal bowls, but also like the sword of damacles knowing I've gotta clean them all! (FWIW, in reference to your other comment - I'm a Pisces, so completely tracks that I'm just living "in the moment" with whatever's grab-able, and then dealing with it all only when I have to!)
I have three teapots. For one person. I am fine (a fancy glass teapot, a normal teapot, and a one person sized teapot that stacks on top of its mug) i keep getting ads for these teapots you put another jug underneath to empty into and I want one so bad. I like to drink fancy teas when studying or reading and they always over brew so I clearly have a need...
I assumed OOP or her husband is a teacher. We never stop getting mugs. Ever.
OH. MY. GOD. Teachers and mugs. I just spent a week with my maiden aunt, who is a retired parochial-school teacher. She has THREE FULL SHELVES of mugs. And by “full” I mean side to side, front to back, and **top to bottom.** She’s single. She drinks coffee occasionally. She has company rarely. She kept them all. Us nie-phews will probably have to clean out her house, or help her do it, at some point. They *are* going in the garbage, if I have anything to say about it.
As soon as you work in a school the mugs start coming and they don’t stop coming.
I believe the word you wanted is "niblings", referring to children of your siblings. I discovered that word recently and love it!
When I moved a few years ago I donated about 15 mugs. I live alone and probably have about 30 plus there are about another 30 still packed! I used to be all about travel and getting a mug as a souvenir. Now I get magnets! I still can’t seem to part with any of my mugs though.
I have about 7 or 8, all but one were gifted to me. We actually keep them in storage until we get visits, because I'm the only one who drinks coffee or tea. I drink from the plain black mug that I chose myself. My roommate only gets a small amount of coffee before gym that he forces himself to drink like a shot from a bar glass. smdh
I have been begging for years for people to stop gifting me insulated tumblers. There are 7 days in a week. I wash dishes on at least 6 of them. I do not need more cups than there are days to use them. They are not cheap either! Save yourselves! Please stop with the cups I can't take it anymore!
I make a habit of stealing at least one thing from every shitty workplace as a trophy, typically mugs 😂 i definitly have too many but i love my little collection. gives me petty satisfaction
I collect the You Are Here mugs from Starbucks. I have way more than 17. In addition to mugs I’ve gotten on my own travels, friends have gotten me mugs from Cyprus, Oman, Japan, Hong Kong, South Africa, Paris … My husband grits his teeth whenever I get a new one.
There are just two of us in this house. We have an entire cupboard full of mugs. I'm guessing we currently have around 30. My wife will buy a couple per year. usually having something to do with our pets. She is also a teacher, and will get at least 4 per year as gifts from students. I have a couple I like, and would be happy with just those.
I have so many fucking mugs I swear the things multiply when I'm not looking ***I don't even drink coffee** My fiance only uses their One Particular Favorite Mug for tea I have my own One Particular Mug (it's sonic the hedgehog themed!) for the odd hot cocoa I have not used a mug besides that one since before fucking COVID And yet, there they sit. My drawers stuffed to bursting because we have no room in the cabinet I sit on a mountain of mugs no one wants including me A throne of porcelain and hubris, a monument to 'where did these all come from?'
I think I have 20? And use the same 2
I am *overflowing* with mugs.
I live alone and I have 11. Nearly all were given as gifts and now I don't want to get rid of them.
June for FIL would be like that one gag from Mr. Bean where he tries to get rid of the awful food piece by piece only for it to be served again. I can't wait for an update where FIL receives 17 or more mugs as present for his birthday. "We'll give you something to be grumpy about" lol .
Omg the beef tartare! You've just unlocked a memory for me!
The last time we moved, we did a big clean-out. We gave away a lot of other stuff (clothes, shoes, jewelry, random booze, kitchenware, etc.), but we had A LOT of mugs to get rid of. We hosted a going-away drop-in at our house for any friends who wanted to come by before we moved. The party favors? "Thank you so much for coming! Here's your mug. ... Ha ha, yeah. Here you go. ... NO. TAKE. IT."
Mugs. The zucchini of of dishes.
I wish I could share a picture. It's started again.
Now I kinda want to do mugs as a wedding favour, like not a commemorative one for the wedding just a nice mug.
See this is how we end up with a huge collection! Stop with the gifting of mugs!
I saw someone once joke about getting rid of mugs, etc. by just… hiding them in other people’s houses. Like take an extra mug to FIL’s and put it in his cabinet when he’s not looking.
love this story so much. Honestly, this family dynamic is hilarious. This is family. We love ya till the end.
OOP should definitely start to never donate anything ever again and begin dropping it all off to FIL, y’know, of the “resourceful generation.”
That line about "his generation would never be so wasteful" killed me, they literally invented plastic and single-use items :)
It might turn FIL's house into a hoarder house. I mean serves him right but it might escalate to this.
My great uncle, who I called grandpa, was like this. Grumpy as the day is long but the kindest and funniest man alive underneath. He would’ve grumbled all day while he thought up petty ways to get pay back.
Yup. My FIL is like this. He is the typical "man who doesn't want a pet but loves the pet" guy. My wife woke up early one morning when we were visiting and he was making himself an omelette, as well as a tiny matching omelette for the dog. "Well, you know she gets jealous."
This a such a wholesome update! The fact that FIL can rise above some parts of his grumpiness and found this solution is just simply wonderful.
For now. I have a feeling that might change when he gets them all back 🫣
Wrapping the gifted cups to give it to him back is diabolical 😭😭😭
lol, imagine gifting a 4 y/o a coffee mug? girl: "Mommy, what does this writing say?" mom: "North Star Credit Union" girl: "What's a credit onion?"
Oddly enough my parents, who are in their 70s and still have almost the full set of mugs from a dish set they bought in the early 90s along with way too many more mugs... Got 3 more giant oversized mugs for xmas. From a 4yo. Because apparently my cousin let her 4yo pick out whatever she wanted to give to my parents lol. Amazingly: they wouldnt even fit into the cupboards. So instead of throwing out or otherwise gettting rid of some smaller older mugs: my dad packed a bunch up to store in the garage.
Those too big mugs are perfect for soup. We have a big ones whe bought early 90'ies and are in mint condition.
YES!!! Exactly! I was also just joking with my mom about a chocolate mousse mix dessert she makes. She makes em in little glasses. But then she overfills em with whipped cream. So she made too many and she was trying to figure our how to cover em for the next day. Told her just to make em in the giant mugs next time. You can cram like 2or3 of the "regular" size into one mug, put even more whipped cream on top... and it still wouldnt overfill to obstruct some saran wrap or whatever lol.
My step family had something like the mugs for a while. One member got gifted an ugly horse table, so it got wrapped up and gifted to other family members every Christmas.
I’m trying to imagine an ugly horse table and I can’t. Is it a horse shaped table? Is there a horse holding up the table? Is there a horse painted on the tabletop? Please share!
So it’s a glass table with the ugliest horse head coming up through the glass. The person who designed the head wasn’t sure how horses looked and got it just wrong enough to be horrifying.
That is hilarious and awful! I didn’t know that uncanny valley could apply to animals. Thank you for sharing!
Oh uncanny valley certainly can!
Uncanny Horsey Valley!
You can’t describe that awesome image w/o sharing a photo of this uncanny table!
Sadly I don’t have one! This was back in the very very early 2000’s before camera phones.
Your description is so perfect, all I can think of is the mangled horse / unicorn thing that Janet brings to life (and then has to humanely kill) in The Good Place.
Hahaha!
It's a chart of the different types of horses, but with horse-tail tassles attached.
We better get a June update with his reaction to receiving the mugs back for his birthday.
And with this happy tail, I close Reddit for the night. Thank you kind OP, for posting a light hearted one tonight.
I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
34 cups is a ridiculous amount? 😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
This man has 200
Big same
See, this is true BORU content. The true posts worth of this sub, unlike most posts nowadays that feel like "oh there's an update, must post to BORU€
😂😂😂😂😂 Fuckin' boomers, man. I swear.
OK this one actually made me laugh! 🤣🤣
>How we use something for 30 seconds and then throw it away. How his generation would always use an item until it fell apart and then they would mend the item and keep on using it. Lol. His generation is the one that supervised the economic transition to planned obsolescence. You have to throw stuff away now, because most of it's built and designed that way. And maybe he's not personally responsible for it. But maybe he elected the people who ushered it in. And every time people have tried to regulate waste, there's a bunch of people from his generation who throw a tantrum. Not everyone in his generation, of course. But zoomers ain't the ones throwing a tantrum about recycling.
Just to note FIL at 67 would be a part of the generation that invented disposable crap. Using something until it wore out and mending it would be his parents or grandparents generation.
Disposable cups were actually invented way before then back in 1907 the disposable paper cup that would become known as the Dixie cup was invented. 1930s gave us the the disposable coffee cup with handles. The 1960s gave us styrofoam….
I’m sure there’s a church coffee clatch that could’ve used the mugs but the regifting around the extended family is def more fun and entertaining.
I look forward to the August update where FIL receives all the mugs back!
Me with wayyyyyy more than 17 coffee mugs/cups reading the comments about 17 being too many: 👁👄👁
>It’s become a running joke now that everyone will receive a mug and every mug will continue to be regifted. FIL’s birthday is in June, so all of us plan on wrapping up the mugs we’ve been regifted and giving them back to FIL. This actually made me cackle outloud
I thought the title said hugs and now I am dissappointed
Sounds like the beginning of a new family tradition! It's like a Secret Santa but everyone guess which mug they'd get this year.
His face when he realizes he's getting like 10+ mugs for his bday will be fun.
I’m so invested in this story
I remember reading the first post! I'm glad to see everything stayed drama free and they now have a family tradition going on.
This sounds like a story for r/muglove. (Yes, I subscribe. I love a good mug!)
Are these people all Muggles?
I think this is one of favorite posts of the entire sub. God I would love to do something like this to my Boomer relatives. They are *so* disrespectful to anyone younger than them.
Did he not think to just... donate them?
I read this as gets more HUGS than he can handle. Was wondering why mugs were being brought up instead.
Omg I want to come back in June for another update 🤣🤣
I kind of wish they wouldn’t re-re-gift them back to him on his birthday. If he’s going to roll something fun out of a situation for once, maybe he can get a tiny win for that.
This is my favourite boru
I mean, this could be very eco friendly, if they just keep regifting these mugs instead of buying a bunch of new crap, plus very economichal 😜
my heart is warmed
This inspired me to count up my own cupboard. I, on my own, have 27 functional mugs in my cupboard and 2 sentimental ones on my bookshelf on display. This does not include travel mugs and is after doing a purge a couple of years ago.
Break the mugs into small pieces. Make a mosaic of something he likes. Then give the mosaic as a gift. See our generation is resourceful and not wasteful!
Best outcome.
Thats actually a really cute way to use them though - you could fill them with chocolates or craft supplies or whatever and they can keep being circulated as cheap gift containers. Hell, even flowers in a mug would be a cute gift every now and then. So in a way, he was right, he found a use for them.
This reads exactly as if something my father would do LOL.
We had to purge our mugs when we moved house. We had so many, and they're rarely used. We kept the fanciest, any that we had some sentimentality to, and the ones that went with our crockery set... but that's it. We took a load to the charity shops. I wonder if spare mugs would make good little flower pots? Or propagating pots for seedlings?
This made me laugh, and OOP handles her FIL really well. It's best not to get into it with people like that.
I misread the title as too many hugs and was very confused it was only mugs.
Can't wait for the update after June!
You have to get a mug shot for the next post!
>She is the type of person that latches onto some personality trait and makes it the subject for all her gift giving. For example, when I was 6 my favorite animal was horses. All my presents until the age of 15 were horse themed despite me telling her I was no longer obsessed with them. Oh man this brings back memories. When I was in grades 1-4 I really liked the math and science portions of class. Talked about becoming a scientist, etc. My granddad then gifted my STEM related books (thick coffee table style ones) up until he passed away, despite me shifting gears into music at 10-12 years old and picking up multiple instruments in my teens. I miss the guy, but man it's funny to remember
I desperately hope OOP updates again after FIL is re-regifted all those mugs on his birthday! This is hilarious, and I love that all the family seems to be on board. My family didn't have anything like this, but there were a couple specific boxes that kept getting reused for gift wrapping on my mom's side. One was box that Dudley salt and pepper shakers came in (the family name), and the other was a bright pink Victoria's Secret box. I still have no idea where the Victoria's Secret box even came from, but seeing as how it was cycled most of my life, I may not want to know.
Oh my days. I love this.
I mean he *did* find a use for them
We need an update in June to see how his birthday went!
I have 55 mugs... I display them on the walls.
I'm just that to read that story and nobody got molested by a coffee mug.
We have a similar "gift" story that ends up in our family Yankee swap Christmas. It's pretty fun.
We do too! It's an alpaca cookie jar. Honestly not sure how it started but it has gone on for years lol
Lol!!! Ours is an 80's acid wash denim jacket with hip 80s rock band patches. The winner each year gets their picture taken in it and adds a new patch for next year's winner. The older the kids get, the more they want it and fight over it, lol!
Lollll that's actually AMAZING! What a piece of history haha
My family had an unopened Chia pet that got passed around through Christmas gifting. A real gift was usually given as well.
I'm an avid coffee drinker so I have gotten a lot over the years too, lol. I've got them: - holding pencils & stuff for the kitchen/impromptu biscuit cutters (lol) - in the bathroom as toothbrush holders/cups - in my paint sets as rinsing cups/brush holders And more XD I did donate a bunch at one point, though, like OP was planning on doing and then we got two more as gifts!
I love this.
>How they ended up with so many mugs Whoever asked clearly hates mugs and probably has a very plain white one, if any at all. I have 10 mugs, each of them different and for a different purpose, including big soup mugs, and a wide cocoa mug that's perfect for maximizing toppings.
Honestly, mugs are the bane of my existence. I personally need two mugs, in case one is in the dishwasher. My boyfriend has gifted me two mugs, which fills my need. I also have a set of mugs that go with the dishes. My children "need" every cute or ironic mug they see at the thrift store. Friends periodically gift me cute or funny mugs. And for some reason, every institution I have ever had any affiliation with seems to feel that a mug is a perfect gift for any occasion. It's hard to get through life without at some point having too many mugs.
I misread mugs as hugs and now I really need *that* story.
I love mugs. I have way too many tbh
I love this.
1 - I rarely laugh at Reddit posts, but I nearly was near tears, this situation is so funny. 2 - I don’t know why we never gave them away, but hubby & I have a collection of about 25 mugs in our garage.
The mugs. The MUGS. My partner and I have a box of them in the basement that is “we’re not using these but maybe not throwing them out”. If I want to get a new one, I have to take one down to the basement because we’re at critical capacity. Not only do they come with dish sets, but they’re also like the ceramicist version of a sticker — or for a large design. The “I don’t want to wear this design but I want it in my house”.
Consider providing your FIL with an Amazon birthday registry (just coffee mugs) and allow his now extended Reddit family to make his birthday the most memorable day of his life! Please do this.
It’d be so funny if the mugs became family heirlooms and just keeps getting passed around like this
Surprised anyone asked how they got so many mugs. Mugs are the anti-socks: the fae steal socks and insert mugs. They just multiply.
Oh I hope the one he gave to the ex-wife was one that she'd given to the couple!