Mos Eisley's Got Nothin'!

My office.

There has never been a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Last Thursday, I was feeling rather chipper. I was mostly over my illness, which had cost me the first two days of the week in sickness, and I was in an interesting, and for once, useful training. Plus, in the training, we were given handi-wipes and chocolate truffles.

Non sequitar, I’ll admit, but there it is.

What’s integral to the story is that I had my big, purple plastic cup with me. This is the cup that I use for my water. I like my water cold and my tea hot, and I prefer to keep my two cups separate from each other so that they don’t cause inter-drink-holder civil war.

Detente at its most tenuous.

Now, silly me, after the training session, I clean up my laptop, my training materials and my handi-wipes, but fail to pick up my purple plastic water cup. I leave it sitting there, in the conference room, in a secured building.

The next day, first thing at 7:45 a.m., realizing my mistake, I rush to the room only to see it is completely devoid of anything resembling a plastic purple water cup. It’s not in the trash, and the trash is still there.

Now, forgive me if this seems overly Wagnarian, but . . . WHO THE HELL STEALS A PLASTIC PURPLE WATER CUP?

I mean honestly, what kind of degraded individual wanders into a conference room after 5 p.m., sees an abandoned and helpless water cup and thinks to themselves, “Yes, that’s right. I’ll just be taking you my pretty!”

Do they then adjust the angle of their wide-brimmed pointy hat, jump on their Numbuss 2000 and cackle as they smash through the glass windows of the conference room? And who cleans that glass up, but doesn’t report a stolen water cup?

MY water cup!

Upon phoning the police I found that some kind of officer morale day was going on which included a stand-up comedian. Most of the officers I spoke with were paying more attention to the comedian than to taking my report. I can’t fault them. The comedian was apparently good.

He also had incredible timing.

Whenever I reached the part about what exactly had been stolen, he apparently cracked a funny, and the officers would laugh so hard they couldn’t be trusted to take my report.

Oddly, Human Resources also seemed to have a similar comedian in-office when I called them.

So, sadly, mourning the loss of a cup whose time came too soon, who gave its life defending those principals, I went back to work, poorer and less hydrated, but wiser for the experience.