The Paper Cup

We have to be careful what we tell children.

They are as close to pure in heart as you get. They like to believe things. Sometimes, they can’t discern between truth, sarcasm, or tongue-in-cheek.

Circa 1998, we were driving through Springfield to attend the Stained Glass Theatre, if I remember correctly. We drove by a factory-like building with a gargantuan paper cup on the front lawn. For some reason, our mother mentioned that she used to work at the paper cup plant. She denies this, however. But both my brother and I remember her saying it.

I looked out the 1995 Chevrolet Lumina sliding door window in awe at seeing the prehistoric building from the Stone Age. It was so cool to see a place where my mom used to work. I felt a close connection to that ugly building with the twenty-foot-tall paper Dixie cup out front.

(By the way, I mentioned the van we were in, and that has to be the ugliest vehicle ever imagined and put into production. Somebody should have been fired for that concoction. The only thing uglier, in my humble opinion, was the 1989 Toyota 1st Generation Passenger Van.)

The next time we drove by the monumental paper cup, I piped up, “Mom, look! There’s where you used to work.”

“What? I never worked there.”

I was flabbergasted. “Yes, you did.”

“Caleb, I’ve never lived in Springfield. I’ve never worked here.”

“Well, you told us you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Uh, yeah, ya did.”

My brother spoke up and agreed with me.

Mom looked at us like our heads had doubled.

“Well, I never worked there. And I don’t remember telling you that.”

“Well, you did.”

“Okay. Drop it.”

I don’t know if that place is still in existence, but if it is, and we ever drive by it again, I’m going to call her and tell her we just passed her old stomping grounds.

We won’t ever let her live it down.

to the pure in heart,
– Caleb