As someone once said, “it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop”. Today my favorite work mug, seen here – a nice big dark blue latte mug with “/dev/mug” (unix joke – go ask your sysadmin) emblazoned on the side – decided to give me a practical demonstration of the hazards of gravity (weak force, indeed…). The two dozen-or-so resulting pieces are now sitting at the bottom of a trash bin. Annoying, yes, but not half as much as realizing that I’ve only had this one a month and a half, after purchasing it to replace the one that gravity claimed shortly before that, which I had successfully kept from gravity’s cruel clutches for four years!

I don’t think I’m getting more clumsy, so I can only conclude that gravity is either getting stronger, sneakier, more malevolent, or all three. Watch your mugs!

As tempting as it is to simply order another for round three (annoying and massively unfair that these rounds only seem to end when gravity wins), I’m not going to. At least not right away: if a lesser mug suffers the same fate, it might as well be getting ones I like…