The mystery of the left-handed coffee cup. Now, although much care is taken to buy (or otherwise appropriate) only RIGHT-handed coffee cups for the kitchen, somehow, now and again, occasionally, here and there, without notice, a left-handed one will appear in the coffee cup cabinet. The wife and Personal Director, claims that they change in the heat of the dish-washer. Well, it’s a very mysterious explanation but she could be right. Think about those socks that disappear in the clothes dryer. There is something very mysterious about that too. Left-handed cups are not very useful. Excepting of course for that strange breed of left-handed people who claim they actually prefer left-handed cups. But they are a fringe minority. A normal right-handed person just can’t drink coffee from a left-handed cup. You could suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome or at the very least a sprained wrist, not to mention the scalding from the spilled hot coffee. So many coffee cups end up sleeping on dusty charity shop shelves, in abandoned basements and rental storage sheds. One can submit left-handed coffee cups to the home for helplessly left-handed head cases. Everyone knows they could be right-handed if they wanted. Some misguided cups have been reprogrammed out of the silly left-hand notion. Some of these poor cups have been abused as youngsters. They were forced to serve things not suited for their personality such as cocoa and/or bath-tub gin. They were too young to realize it was sinkful, sick and wrong. Others, well, others have just succumbed to peer pressure. “Just try it for a while,” the others say. And sure enough they wake up some morning with unexplained stains, sitting left-handed at the back of the cabinet. They never see the light of day in the breakfast nook again. Some end up full of pencils on an office desk in a cubicle far, far away. Fortunately, some believe with faith and persistence they can be reprogrammed to be healthy and useful members of our kitchenware. It is not the way Frankhoma intended, and so it is written in the Pottery Barn Catalogue, chapter 112, verse 4. Nor is it accepted in other beliefs such as Corning or Melmac. No. That’s silly. Everyone knows it’s a right-wing conspiracy to make everyone buy more coffee cups.

Yes, I refuse to use Kleenex until THIS stops.