This morning, when I got into work, an email greeted me:

From: [Name Redacted]
To: New York Office
Subject: Has You Seen My Green Mug?

Has anyone seen my green mug?

It usually lives in the kitchen area but it's gone MIA this morning.

If you borrowed it, could you please just send me a note or return it to the kitchen area anonymously? No questions asked. Just a little nervous since my pasta bowl went missing last week or so…

:(

At the time, I thought, "Wow, how obnoxious," and hit delete.

Just now, I got up to go to the bathroom and on the bathroom door, was a MISSING POSTER about the same goddamn mug, even featuring a PHOTO of it. The whole time I am in the bathroom, I cannot stop thinking about hos obnoxious I find this to be.

It's a MUG. Not a dog, not even a piece of jewelry. A stupid mug, that if you really care so much about, you should probably keep at your desk instead of the kitchen area. There must be 30-40 people who work on this floor, many of whom own mugs but only a small handful feel the need to take up the very small counterspace in the kitchen with them. (Also, many of whom almost never use the kitchen.) Also, it's a very annoying mug -- I am paranoid, so I'm not going to describe it too much but to say it has a cutsey saying on it and is all polka-dotted and oversized and the kind of thing I would really not want to confess to owning, much less publicly mourn the loss of.

Anyway, I finish my business in the bathroom, all the while thinking terrible thoughts about this co-worker whining about her mug and considering if it would be really rude of me to rip down this stupid sign, when, just as I am leaving the bathroom, a woman carrying the very mug in question turns the corner.

Despite being a rather senior person on staff, she is nearly wringing her hands (except she is carrying the mug, so she can't really wring them) saying to another co-worker, "Oh God, I didn't know! I need to wash out the tea stains -- it's been on my desk all weekend!" And the young woman by her side is saying "Here, just give it to me, I'll give it back to her and we won't say anything about where it came from --"

I am seriously wondering if it would be wrong of me to accidentally drop the damn thing next time I'm in the kitchen.