During the holidays, weird gifts often show up at our house. While they’re not things we’d ever buy for the kids, the joy they provide (and thus, my gratitude) is undeniable. One example is a set of drinking cups received yesterday for Valentine’s Day from a work acquaintance of Michelle’s. The cups employ most of the traits of modern novelty plastic drinkware, except for that water you might sometimes see sloshing around the double-layered plastic of a beach-themed cup . They don’t have that.
These are loosely valentine themed, featuring unicorns, dinosaurs, and sloths with messages like “you are magical”, “i rawr u”, and “hug me” (respectively). An affixed hard plastic straw protrudes from the bottom and spirals up the sides of the highball-shaped vessel, the bottom of which is reinforced with chunkier plastic to house its electronics: surprisingly bright strobing lights powered by 3 non-replaceable LR44 button batteries. All this excitement has for the moment proved hard to leave on the table or oriented in such a way that allows liquid to remain within. For this reason, choice of filling has been limited to water. It will be interesting to observe whether laws of physics will be understood and respected before the batteries of the cups (or our patience) wear our. Nevertheless, grateful for these stupid things. Because joy!