Cup of Doom

Now Christmas has passed and as I begin the new year, it’s time to take stock of the season’s gifts. Overall not a bad holiday season, we got a Wii for the kids, I got a few sweaters and gift cards, and my wife is happy with her new Wii fit with all accompany accruements. And then there’s this. This is a Ceremonial Chilean Mate Tea Cup with Silver Straw.

Mind you, there's no reason in the world you should know this, but I know this because my wife happens to be Chilean-Italian. So my mother-in-law was visiting us from San Fran and amongst her gifts she included this little stocking stuffer for my wife. According to my wife and her mother, in Chile the people in the Andes use this to drink Mate tea. It’s sort of a cultural icon to Chileans. Fair enough, I’m a pretty educated guy, and I like to think of myself as pretty cultured. I love my wife and usually her tastes home decor and household items are impeccable, but this is going to be a problem.

I mean look at this thing. It’s a hollowed out fruit carcass with some brass ornamentation and some chromed tin straw, not to mention that phallic nose thing. I can understand some guy in the Andes 20,000 feet above sea level having to drink out of this thing, but we live in the middle of NJ suburb. My kitchen is cluttered enough with cereal boxes, tea kettles, espresso machine, and sugar bowls without a goddamned Mate cup with a hard on sitting in the middle of my kitchen counter.

Simply put, I hate the fucking thing. It doesn’t fit into anything else in the kitchen, my wife is never going to actually use the stupid thing since she only drinks Celestial Seasonings and Earl Gray teas. But now this monstrosity is in my way all the time. It's on the kitchen counter by the espresso machine when I try to make myself my morning coffee, it's in the pantry in the way of my kids’ morning cereal, then it’s just offensively sitting there by the sugar bowl staring at me with that penis nose thing. It's friggin everywhere mocking me.

So now I'm faced a few choices:

1 ) I could openly address with my wife. I could innocently ask, “Honey, we aren’t gonna actually keep this thing, right?” But I know how that’s going to end. My wife will call me an uncouth philistine, explain to me how it’s a relic from the old country that represents her cultural roots, and insist it stays. I could then use my husbandly veto power and insist it go, but all that would lead to is my wife bringing up a long list of things that I own that she hates. She’d make me give up at least three of these items for her one Mate Cup. This is not a good prospect. Also, this option is particularly problematic because it shows my hand on how I feel about this thing and as you will see, severely limits my next few options.

2) I could Hoffa it. That is, as I’ve done with numerous items over my 15 years of marriage, I could quietly dispose of said item without a word. It might take her about a week or two before she notices it gone. I would deny all knowledge of its disappearance and simply claim it’s misplaced, and move on. Out of sight, out of mind. If anyone is shocked at reading such drastic tactics, please understand that my wife is incapable of throwing anything out. Items either have some yet unforeseen material value ("It's gonna be an antique!") or emotional value("the first thing I got from so and so"). So I've learned that openly contesting the worth of an item is grim; my wife will also argue it's worth keeping. Over all, this is not a bad option, though I might feel a tinge of guilt at throwing out something my wife supposedly cares about. Stupid guilt.

3) Or I could break it. Yes, you read right. Not break it as in shatter it in some dramatic fashion. A subtle crack would do, the kind of thing that could happen in the day to day activities of a busy kitchen. “Uh-oh, honey, I think this thing cracked….” She’d surely yell a bit and call me an irresponsible klutz for breaking it, but chances are she thinks that about me anyway. But there’s always the chance that she’d see through my ploy or because she now knows it’s broken she’d actually order a replacement. Not good.

So here we are…decisions, decisions. Stay tuned.