Mug is Family

I've carried a big mug for a long time. Actually, it's Mug, a proper noun. There have been several incarnations of Mug, but I'm rarely far from him.

Cycling, well, I wore a CamelBak for a long time until I got my Nikon and started riding with a camera bag on my bag 99.8% of the time. But at work, at home, in my car, Mug is there, full of bubbly, delicious caffeine laden beverages, mostly Diet Coke. Sometimes Diet Dew, the occasional Diet A&W Cream Soda, or if I am not caffeinating, club soda or Squincher Zero.

Mug has been, for a long time, a 52 ounce deal. I'm old enough to remember when a standard soda serving was 12 or 16 ounces and a 'Big Gulp' was a whole quart, but that was when the TV had three or four channels, doctors didn't even have mobile phones—the plains might not have been black with buffalo but close. The 52 ounce Mug, that's been standard since before my kids were born.

But I've been the recipient of much grief over the years. My bosses (I work for a small family business so we're talking a Mom, Dad and one of their sons) are ingrained with a notion that soda is somehow deadlier than tobacco or maybe even crack. And lots of other people over the years have been, 'That better be water,' or whatever and I'm like, yes, it is mostly water. As Max Barry revealed, the recipe for Coke is one part faintly repulsive black syrup, four parts carbonated water, and 45 parts marketing.

But I always said, when asked why a 52 ounce mug, because I haven't found a bigger one. Which was true until this week.

All you who thought my 52 ounce mug was excessive, I now have one that holds a two liter bottle plus ice with headspace to clear: my 100 ounce Mug.