Sporting Events Keep Cupboards Stocked

At the time of my wedding, I was busy choosing just the right silver flatware, china and crystal patterns.
I felt it was absolutely necessary to have these things for all the formal occasions I was certain to have.
At the same time, I deliberated thoroughly in choosing what was described as everyday dishes and glassware.
By some miracle, the sets of the “good stuff” are still intact. I think they have lasted because my formal occasions have not occurred as often as I thought they would, thank goodness.
However, my everyday sets are down to memento status, with only the gravy boat left, no milk glasses and only one juice tumbler.
This doesn’t affect our lifestyle at all because now our china is by Chinette – the disposable kind – and our crystal is from sporting events.
We are a very lucky family to have glasses galore from every event in town and many from out of town. Each of these 16-ounce or larger plastic cups decorated with words and pictures of an event.
Our most recent set came from the 1988 College World Series, where our kids spent enough on refreshments to create a new NCAA baseball scholarship. Then they gathered cups left in the bleachers by other sports fans who apparently don’t appreciate the finer things.
After all, it is written in blue on the cup that they are No. 2 in a collector series. We had No. 1 from last year’s series, but all the ink washed off in the dishwasher.
We have other sets made up of Omaha Royals and Creighton Bluejays cups, and of course, no home in Nebraska would be truly representative of the Cornhusker state without at least one Go Big Red cup.
I surveyed a friend’s cupboard and discovered cups touting the escapades of Robert Rabbit, heralding the upcoming Summer Olympics, souvenirs from a visit to the Air Force Academy and a favor from a college fraternity formal.
We use these cups every day, from breakfast to bedtime. They get left in the car, out on the lawn, down in the basement, upstairs in the bedrooms, but we never run short of them. For every plastic cup we misplace, five new ones take its place after a rock concert or an air show.
In addition, there is a lot of swilling of drinks in this watering hole from cups obtained at fast-food and quick-stop shopping places.
Some are refillable for a portion of the original cost, some have tops, and some even have built-in plastic straws. This is the most popular style.
I wonder if its success has anything to do with the similarity to a baby bottle. The teen-ager sipping all day long on his Big Squeeze is operating on the same principle as the toddler who conducts his business of the day with his bottle close by so he can take a swig whenever he gets thirsty.
Some of the other glasses we found were the Big Gusher, which you have to fill up when you have a powerful thirst. You also have to be powerfully strong to hold the cup to your mouth.
If you are slurpy or sloppy, you can slurp some refreshment from a Super Slurpee glass.
The Kum and Go is for folks who aren’t sure if they are coming or going, but always want to come in dry and go out wet.
The Border Buster and the Border Cooler are what you drink if you are on the lam and running from the law.
Anyone whose favorite song is Little Brown Jug probably would want to drink from the Little Pop Jug, Movin’ Jug Jr. or the Chug-a-jug.
What kind of cup do I like to drink from? I can never decide, so I take it straight from the bottle.
August 10, 1988