The perils of using (a travel mug for something other than coffee)

No, this is not a tale of the perils of using elicit drugs. I am hopelessly under-qualified to offer any advice on that particular vice! This story unfolded last Sunday, a day of pain, sickness and a horrible concoction that I felt compelled to keep drinking anyway. Let me explain.

My eldest came down with the flu pretty hard the week before last; missing four days of school which is pretty unlike him. I got through the week okay, managing to keep his brothers from also getting sick, and was happy to see him improve as the week wore on and shake it over the weekend.

And then of course, the next week I started to feel the hints of something similar; nothing bad but a bit of congestion low down in the throat. This bubbled along with no real change for a couple of days and, busy as I was, I didn’t take enough time to rest as I probably should have. I have been guilty of this in the past; but in most instances I might just get a bit of a sore throat or a minor sniffle and can usually get through it without much issue.

This was pretty much me on Sunday morning, except with less hair and a much redder nose and eyes. Photo by cottonbro

So I continued about my week. However, towards the back end of the week there may have been some drinks consumed. On Saturday I may have helped a friend move house. And then there could have been a few more drinks consumed in the afternoon and early evening. So it is really with little surprise that, come Saturday night, my luck had run out and I felt the full force of the flu hit me.

While I avoided getting a temperature, I was hit with a headache, heavy sinus pressure, sneezing & coughing, a sore throat, and a nose that was simultaneously blocked tight and running constantly. Where it was coming from and how it kept getting past a blockage that air couldn’t even find a way through, is one of those mysteries of life. Perhaps there a tiny wormhole had formed inside my nostril connecting to the distant and disgusting planet of Muconius 9. Word has it that the recent COVID pandemic has scored Earth a spot on the top five travel destinations for the Muconius locals, and it seemed they were intent on checking things out.

Anyway, you get the picture; I felt disgusting on account of being disgusting, what with the dripping and sneezing and coughing. I haven’t felt that sick in quite a while. I did my best to contain it and poor Renae endured like a saint among the leppers.

It was a rough night, feeling worse than I have in quite a while. But there was worse to come the next morning. See, the boys had footy on Sunday, and I manage one of their teams. I had all the manager’s gear in my car ready to go. Except that my car and I were in Brisbane at Renae’s and the matches were up on the Sunshine Coast. I took a RAT test almost praying for a positive result so I’d have a state-supported excuse to self-isolate and just stay in bed. Naturally it came back negative.

A lovely mug of hot lemon water when feeling sick; what could possibly go wrong with that? Photo by Polina Tankilevitch

So I steeled myself, had a warm shower and got myself ready to go. And this is where the beverage finally enters the story. Renae asked me if I wanted a coffee for the road. It was tempting, but adding milk to an already severely over-congested system didn’t seem like a wise choice. And given my less-than-wise choices had gotten me to the position I was in, I figured it was time to smarten up, so I declined. However, I had already been sipping on lemon tea the night before; just hot water with lemon juice squeezed into it. So, when Renae offered to make one of those in my contigo travel mug for the road I thanked her and said that would be great.

Soon I was on the road, facing an hour-long drive after a rough night’s sleep, followed by a 3-hour stint managing the footy team in the windy winter conditions. My nose was feeling akin to how a zucchini flower must feel when stuffed full to bursting with ricotta mixture. Only many times grosser and infinitely less delicious.

Five minutes in I remembered the drink and decided to take a sip. Now, I’ve had this contigo for a while, and I generally only use it for a coffee on the way to work. And I reserve it for good coffee; no international roast or blend 43 have touched the insides of that mug! Pod quality with frothed milk only. I usually only have one coffee a day, so figure it should be a good one! And of course, the travel mug gets washed after every use.

A heavy-weight fight for the ages; coffee v lemon water! And just like with actual boxing, there is no real winner as both contestants are left a mangled, unrecognizable mess to their former selves. Coffee Photo by SpotwizardLee from Pexels, Lemon water Photo by Tara Winstead, and mashed together badly by me!

But because I only use it to drink coffee, it seems it has become firmly infused with a coffee flavour over time. So I took a sip, expecting to taste the heat of the water, infused with the soothing bitterness of the lemon. What I got instead was a taste like if someone had tipped hot water into an ash tray that was full of old, coffee-flavoured cigarette butts, and then poured that into my cup. It seemed that, upon entering the cup, the lemon flavour had encountered the old coffee flavour, they had puffed up their chests and circled each other a few times, started an argument over who was the bitterest of the pair, which had then degenerated into name calling, punches being thrown, and eventually both being tossed into the old dumpster out back to think about their behaviour.

And this was when I realised my second big error. Usually, I take a bottle of cold water with me when I head out on a longer trip, or on the way to footy. In my flu-induced daze, I had not thought to do so. So it was just me and the road, feeling rotten and nothing to sip on except the horrid lemon coffee concoction that, through not fault of Renae’s, had brewed away in my contigo. I could have stopped for water but that would have potentially resulted in being late to the game, and of course would have involved the expenditure of more energy which I didn’t have and couldn’t muster up at that time.

Contigo, this is all your fault! Oh, how can I stay mad at you!

So I doubled down and sipped away. I’m not saying I’m proud of it, and feel the need to clarify that I didn’t finished it all. But in my flu-induced desperation I gave it a good nudge; probably pushing two-thirds across the course of the trip. It was pretty horrible, but better than nothing.

And it got me through – the footy match was painful, but the boys won so at least that was something to celebrate. The afternoon was tough, as the boys came back to mine and I had to muster up the energy to prepare dinner, and do all those parenting duties that are there regardless of how horrible we feel! I was extremely relieved when I was finally able to crawl into bed to rest and recover.

After a couple of days I was feeling much better; well enough to drink coffee again. I even pulled out the contigo and gave it a nervous run one morning, worried that the lemon/coffee ash-tray flavour may have become permanently fused in the mug and it would be forever ruined. But it seems the cup was satisfied I had learned my lesson to only ever use it for coffee and, with the right beverage back in the cup, the flavour had returned to the one I knew and loved.