Uhhhh...

One of the nice things about my current job is that I work with just four other people. Another nice thing is that, of those four, only one ever drinks the free coffee which our boss so kindly provides – leaving not only more coffee for ME, but more than enough coffee cups to go around.

This might seem like a small success, but I know what it is like to suffer over shared dishware in the workplace. Last year, I worked in an office that had approximately 25 employees but only ten coffee cups, and not only that, we also had a maniacal office manager who considered it part of her job description to harass us about washing the dishes at least 5 times a day – said harassment occurring via a progression of emails that began with a curt reminder and ended with Total Batshit Hysteria. (Usually we were threatened not only with the Terrible Shame of the Undone Dish, but also with "loss of kitchen privileges", as though there were no worse imaginable fate than having to bring in your own coffee.)

My new situation, MUCH better.

And since a) we have a coffeemaker but no sink, b) nobody is ever nearby and clamoring for my coffee cup, and c) I am really, really lazy, I am not exactly diligent about the post-coffee dish-doing. It is, after all, only my germs that are floating around in there anyway.

Of course, if I don't wash my cup at the end of the day, there's usually still a bit of coffee – maybe half an inch or so – left in there when I go to refill the next morning. Which (I have been telling myself) is not a big deal. Especially if I just pour in new coffee on top of it. It all tastes the same, and a couple ounces of leftover day-old coffee in a cup that's 90% freshly-made might not be optimal, exactly, but it's not that repulsive.

Until I realized that, if this happens every day for two weeks, the makeup of that half-inch of leftover coffee does not make it "day-old."

It makes it fourteen days old.

Yeah, I'm gonna go wash that cup now. And maybe throw up a little.