Why did I just do that?

I was just about to start unloading my weekly food trolley items onto the conveyor belt when my eyes were drawn to a display of various Christmasy items strategically placed near the check-out you know the sort of thing – candles, baubles, little snowmen etc. I ignored those completely but I went straight for a couple of coffee mugs with shiny gold stars and snowflakes adorning their sides. I have more than enough coffee mugs at home but what caught my attention was the shape of these mugs. They were kind of fat and squat and just looked SO cute. They were also very cheap, only 2 euros per mug. They went straight into my trolley. Even the check-out lady remarked on how nice they were. A good buy I thought.

On the way home I thought about them even more. They would make for a lovely Christmas present – I could put some nice little chocolates inside them or a chocolate brown candle and wrap them up in shiny, transparent wrapping paper with a bow – I would certainly be happy to receive such a gift. I would return the following day to buy some more.

At home I took them out of my shopping bag and admired them once again. I couldn’t believe theywere so nice and yet so cheap. I couldn’t wait to make smooth, milky coffees in them.
But first they needed to be washed and so I popped them into the dishwasher and made my one coffee of the day in an old faithful – a simple, teal-coloured mug with no special features except forits pleasant colour.

I pottered around the house and got on with a few chores, all the while listening to the comforting sound of the dishwasher whirring away in the background. I do find it a comforting sound (just like the washing machine in fact) and know I am not the only one. I know of someone who actually sits on the floor next to them and simply listens – finding the noise relaxing and soothing.
At last the tiny beep from the dishwasher signalled the end of its work. I opened the front and began to unload everything, eyeing my two new gorgeous mugs at the back of the tray. I would have a second cup of coffee today.
But no, that was not to be because when I picked up the two mugs, I immediately noticed something different and very wrong. The sides of the mugs looked … well…not so smooth anymore. I could see a plasticky and bubbly sheen on them – and then of course, the penny dropped – at the same time as I spotted a little sticker on the bottom of the mugs which I could swear were not on them when I had put them into the machine.
“Do not use in dishwasher”
The lovely little gold stars and snowflakes were now all bubbled up, blending into each other or completely missing in parts of the mug. I felt so silly – of course, they were cheap mugs and the decorations had not been hand-painted on the sides, they were plastic adhesive strips. And of course the dishwasher’s robust and heavy machinations were never going to be kind to them.
Why did I just do that? I had ruined them! Some of the plastic had also bubbled up over the lip of the mug and so nobody could ever drink from them.
This is not the first time I have done something like this – I live in my dreamy thoughts too much for my liking – instead of concentrating on the cold, hard fact that 2 euros is very cheap for a mug and there must be a reason for that – I had been envisaging pretty chocolates and candles nestled inside and friends’ faces lighting up on seeing them.

It is close to the end of the year so perhaps I will try (yet again) to add it to my list of resolutionsfor the new year – concentrate more, live in this world so I don’t have to say “Why did I just do that?” again.
A wild and vain hope I know.
And you? I would love to hear about similar things you have done – I’m not the only one to do such kind of things – am I?