To coaster or not to coaster? That is the question. Well it's not actually a question at all at 88. It's a given. A no-brainer. Where you find a cup in our household you will find a coaster under it. Just like lamb and mint, strawberries and cream, jam and butter, you will find glass and mat at 88. Just as I now find I cannot say 'kid' , I cannot place a cup filled with liquid down on a wooden surface without a coaster. Burn marks and water stains you will not find here.
And why not? We have a wooden coffee table and a wooden dining table and to stain them would be careless and unappreciative of the work gone into producing them. A blight on their beauty. Ugly to gaze upon. Ungrateful to the trees, felled for their wood.
My mum taught me about the efficacy of the mat and now my children would no more pop a drink down without a coaster than pull their teeth out. Actually that's not quite true. They are at that age where wobbly teeth are two a penny....actually £1 for one lost tooth... so they have been known to tease a dangling tooth out to improve their piggy bank balance.
I have super human skills when it comes to coastering. If a guest pops a hot coffee down on the wooden surface without a mat, I'm in there with consummate speed. Cup up, coaster under, cup down, back in chair, conversation continued. I remember once my brother's girlfriend put a teapot straight down on my parent's oak dining table when noone was looking (obviously if I'd witnessed this I'd have been in there teapot up, mat under, teapot down, bob's your uncle). Oh the carnage. We've barely got over the shock til this day.
So beware oh honoured guest when you come to 88, you are most most welcome but woe betide you if you coast along without using a coaster.
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