It’s funny how your job description can fit you like a skin.

When I started this position a little more than two years ago, washing dishes every morning was part of my duties. And I was okay with that – still am. My previous job – not so much.

My previous job had a bunch of younger people who couldn’t clean up after themselves, wouldn’t offer to take out the garbage, but instead expected me to take out both full 55 gallon bags. I could go on, but my wineglass is empty and I’d have to open another bottle – and at this late hour, it’s probably not a good idea. One day, we can discuss past lives as doormats.

In this office, I’m not the youngest, but I’m not the oldest like I was in the other. Everyone here picks up after themselves. How refreshing!

From my first day on this job, these simple classic IKEA mugs (above) and I have had a love/hate relationship. As my predecessor was taking through the daily routine that day, I broke not one, but two of those mugs! I haven’t broken a glass or mug or even a plate at home in years! They say it was first day jitters. I say it was a kismet – something was yet to be revealed.

We keep half a dozen cups out by the single cup coffeemaker for the office’s convenience. A not so secret secret is the extra stash of mugs in the cabinet above the sink. And that’s where I fell in…cosmic connection with an inanimate object.

I can’t say that I loved the blemished mug when I saw it, but I connected with it. And it became my mine. Unofficially, of course. It had a black spot on its outside surface – in “Gunsmoke”, it would be Kitty’s beauty spot, a character all unto itself.

But it’s no beauty spot. Yet it drew me in.

I’m not obsessed enough to type my name on a Brother P-touch just to label my white mug with the black splotch. That mug stays in the cabinet, only to be removed when I want coffee. It sits at my desk with me. It never gets placed by the coffeemaker. It’s coveted.

We are kindred spirits, this mug and I. We work just fine with our imperfections and most don’t think anything of our black spots (mine you can’t see). But I know they are there.