Day 258

I don’t typically make resolutions at the New Year.  Frankly, I don’t need a holiday to make promises to myself I can’t keep; I can do that year round.

Speaking of resolving to do something, I decided sometime last fall our family was going to start bringing our own mugs and cups into all food and drinking establishments that use disposables.   It seems like a fairly simple way to reduce our waste with the added benefit of a small discount at some places like Starbucks where after only 37 green tea lattes you will have saved enough for a free one and after 370,000 you will have saved enough for a PT Cruiser.

But there needed to be a bit of preparation, meaning I needed to get a travel mug since all of my pre-Simple Year ones were packed away somewhere.

I did have a travel mug at one time this year, but I lost the lid rendering it merely a mug.  Fine for home and other stationary pursuits, but in order to get from coffee shop to office stain free, I decided I needed a better containment system.

I kept forgetting.  Finally, I had to write myself a checklist to implement the new sustainable vessel project.  After I composed it, I realized it looked sort of like I was writing a list for someone who had suffered a closed head injury.

1. Buy used travel mug
2. Put travel mug and water bottles in car
3. Take travel mug and water bottles into restaurants

Then I bought a really cool travel mug at a thrift store.  After deftly crossing number one off my list, I realized it either had a former life as a joke “dribble glass” or had been cast off because the seal on the lid had worn.  I had it in the cabinet a few weeks and would occasional forget its leaky ways and subsequently drip something down the front of my shirt as a reminder.

Looks like a disposable, but it’s not.

So then I had to add another bullet to the list

1.5 Fix used travel mug

I procrastinated long enough it did turn into a de facto New Year’s resolution because, yesterday, Jupiter was in the second house or something and I finally remembered to add a strip of duct tape to the rim.

Duct tape comes in all colors and patterns these days and is high fashion for the under 13 crowd.

Somehow it worked, no more drippy chin, YEAH!

Yesterday was its maiden voyage to Starbucks.  Although, it was a rough start as, I actually forgot it both in the house and the car and had to run back to each of them delaying my arrival at work by about 10 minutes.

Just for grins, I always order in non-Starbucks approved language and speak at a leisurely pace.

Yeah, uhmmmmmm, I’d like a MEDIUM green tea latte made with non-fat milk and, oh yeah, only one pump of sugar.

Then they invariably, still very pleasantly but with just the slightest undercurrent of impatience, turn to the person making the drinks and hurriedly rattle off the translation.

One GRANDE non-fat-one pump-green tea latte

It doesn’t take much to amuse me, you should try it sometime.   But, they were not nearly as impressed with my own container as I was.   Apparently I’m not really on the leading edge and the practice is pretty commonplace to them which is a good thing, I think.  Also, I’ve since found out that most Starbucks actually have real mugs under the counter available for use if you just ask for them.

Did you know this?  How did I not know this?  Am I always the last to know?