24 years ago

Twenty-four years ago, in 1987, I got my first computer. It was an IBM clone from one of the many no-name computer computer companies advertising in some computer magazine. dd_b recommended the company, and I ordered it via phone or snailmail mail order: I don't remember which. It wasn't ordered via e-mail, because that wasn't an option then. I paid slightly over $1,000 for it, which included an amber-on-black monitor and a 30-meg hard drive. The default was 20 meg, and I paid the extra $100 for the larger hard drive.

Shortly after it arrived, pameladean and dd_b gave me a mug as a computer-warming present. It was a black mug that held 12 ounces comfortably, and on it, it said "Is MS-DOS a feminist??" The double question marks seemed a bit excessive, we agreed, but the sentiment was amusing. And it was the perfect size to hold a goodly amount of coffee but still fit on the coffee warmer that sits next to the computer (and which is almost as old). It has been my default coffee mug pretty much since I started working at home, in 1996.

Today, I broke the mug. I just knocked it off the kitchen counter when I was doing something else.

I have plenty of other mugs. In fact, I had to do triage on the mug situation when I moved into this house, because half of a cabinet devoted to mugs was quite enough. But I don't have another mug of just that size, or with those associations.

This, I suppose, is what it means to be attached to things. Or, at least, to the right thing.

Do you have some trivial thing that you're unreasonably attached to because it just works the way it's supposed to?