Ow.

Dear blue coffee cup,

We've been through a lot together since I bought you and your brothers off the shelf at Pier 1 in 2003. I'm quite fond of your dark-blue china and funky pseudo-Oriental pattern, so I was disappointed that you went out of print, so to speak.

When your handle broke, I glued it. And lo these many years we've gotten along just fine. All those cups of coffee and tea, mugs of hot chocolate for the Boy. It's been a long row, you and I.

So I'm more than a little upset with you. Not just because you chose tonight to die. But the manner in which you went.

I was innocently sitting on my couch, a Grisham movie playing on the screen while I accomplished any number of Endless Tasks (tm Allan Gilbreath) on my laptop. I was looking forward to a nice mug of hot tea. Moroccan mint tea, to be exact, from my friends at Teavana. It's coffee by day, but when the sun goes down it's tea all the way.

I picked you up by your lovely dark-blue handle, and you chose that particular moment to break off in my hand.

I want to thank you for defying the laws of physics and missing the laptop entirely. As much as I love you, it would cost about a thousand times more to replace Serenity the MacBook than it costs to replace you.

However, dumping an extra-large mug of steaming hot tea all over the front of my body was not appreciated. Is that any way to thank me for all the years we've had together? All the washing, packing, moving, thousands of cups? You couldn't have died on the kitchen floor or in the sink? You had to dump it all over me?

I'm sorry to bid you farewell, truly. There aren't many of you left. But as I treat the burns on my legs, I really wish you'd chosen a gentler goodbye.