MY CUP RUNNETH UNDER...

Funny the memories that spring, unbidden, into one's mind upon a sudden glimpse of a half-forgotten object that, over time, has merged chameleon-like with its surroundings and become practically invisible.  Until, that is, it metaphorically leaps from its accustomed place in an attempt to remind one of its existence, and draw an acknowledgement that its importance is yet secure after all this time.  Such a thing happened to me earlier, so let me now relate a shamelessly sentimental tale.

In my kitchen is a cup that isn't a cup, which I've had for around 18 years.  I'm so used to seeing it that I don't even see it anymore.  That's to say, it no longer registers on my conscious mind.  It is, quite literally, half a cup, as if it's been set upon by a laser and vertically spliced down the middle.  (Except it has a 'back' to its imaginary splice and isn't quite so bereft in the dimensional stakes as I might make it sound.)

It bears the legend "You asked for half a cup of tea" and functions as an actual cup for when one wants to elicit a smile from a visitor.  Not that I've ever used it for such an effect, but it has actually been used for that purpose on me.  It must be over 20 years ago now, that I was visiting an old schoolmate and neighbour, GEORGE COOPER, who lived in an area in which I once stayed over four decades ago.

I was in the habit of taking a stroll in my old environs on a Saturday morning, and would occasionally drop in to visit George and his father, who could always be relied upon to provide a cup of tea and sometimes even a sausage sandwich.  On this particular day, I replied to George's enquiry as to whether I would like a cuppa by saying:  "I wouldn't say no to half a cup, thanks very much."

He'd probably been waiting years for someone to say that.  In due course, in he trotted with a plate of biccies and proffered a cup into my outstretched hand.  Yup, you guessed it, 'twas the half cup I've just been wittering on about in my customary long-winded fashion.  Cue my obligatory and poorly-feigned 'enthusiastic' chuckle at the jest.

A handful or so years later, Mr. Cooper Senior sadly passed away, necessitating in George having to eventually vacate the premises as one of his brothers owned the house and wanted to sell it.  On one of my last visits after his dad's demise, George gave me the cup as a memento of my Saturday morning drop-ins, which, alas, were now drawing to a close due to him having to move from his childhood home.

And so the cup that isn't a cup (but is half a cup) sits on a shelf in my kitchen, bringing with it memories of another house and another time, when I'd revisit one of the neighbourhoods of my youth and reminisce with George and his father about events from so very long ago.  And now that time of reminiscing has itself become a memory, having passed into history and is now a period which I fondly recollect today.

I still sometimes go for a stroll in that old neighbourhood and have other friends living there who I can drop in on if I want to, and, indeed, sometimes I do. However, whenever I'm back there, I always walk past George's house (which, to me, will always be George's house regardless of whoever lives there) and recall with fond affection the day I asked for half a cup of tea and was given precisely that.

And I'm surprised to find my chuckle at the event is now somehow a genuine one.