By Dessa Bayrock (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: October 31, 2012
There are a lot of things I start neglecting when midterms start raising their ugly heads, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. When a set of short-answer questions and essay responses are staring you down, many other things become less important.
For instance, I stopped washing my coffee mug this semester.
There was no moment of truth where I made a conscious decision. There wasn’t one morning where I specifically picked studying over the cleanliness of my coffee receptacle. It just happened, and I’m not sure how.
The thing is I don’t actually care that much.
When I stop and think about it, sure – it’s a little gross. But the more I think about it, the less gross it gets. I don’t put cream and sugar in my coffee and everyone knows that coffee never goes bad. It’s just coffee in my mug, so it’s not like it’s going to go mouldy. Right?
And I drink so much coffee that I’m always filling the damn thing back up again. Think about how much time I’m saving by not washing it every time I finish a cuppa. It’s got to be hours, in total. At least a couple half-hours. Maybe 20 minutes. Twenty minutes could be the difference between acing that test and crying over a C+. Is dish cleanliness really worth getting C+? Is it? You can decide for yourself, but I know what I pick, hands down, any day.
These are the kinds of thoughts that trickle around the edges of my brain whenever I start thinking about my mug in earnest. I know I’m not exactly being logical, and it’s probably good practice to clean my mug. But I have cleaned it – at least twice in living memory. That’s not so bad, right?
Maybe I’m using all my logic skills to write research papers. That might be why they are completely lacking in the hot beverage hemisphere of my life.
Looking at the situation objectively, the thing that scares me most about this situation actually has nothing to do with coffee. It’s the fact that I’ve also started drinking tea this semester. Out of the same mug. Still don’t wash it. You know why? Because in some secret recess of my brain, I believe that green tea is cauterizing my mug.
Why would I think that? Nobody in their right mind would think that, but here I am thinking it. For the 15 per cent of my brain screaming that cleanliness is next to godliness, there is 85 per cent that honestly believes I am cleaning my mug. With green tea.
“They put green tea in soap, right?” my brain asks itself. “That means green tea practically is soap.”
“Oh, totally,” my brain replies to itself. “I saw that in Bodyworks or something. It’s got something in it that’s really good for you. Açai or something. Omega 3?”
I hesitate to dive into the psychology of this too deeply, since I’ve never actually taken a psychology class. But overall, I think I’m still pretty healthy about this. I am being completely honest with myself. I have a white mug, so I am utterly aware of where I stand. Every morning I am totally at peace with the mounting rings of caffeine-staining, and then I hide them away under the joy of a fresh cup of coffee.
There are better things to worry about, like being totally unprepared for the English paper due tomorrow. If I’m not going to take the time to wash my mug, I’m definitely not going to take the time to stress about not washing my mug. It’s only logical.
It’s only logical.
