The cupboard war
Demons, mildew, and in-laws.
The first thing I do when I come home, after washing my hands, is put on the water kettle. It doesn’t matter if it’s warm outside or already evening. I’m always ready for a cup of tea.
It is the sound of the kettle, the familiar process of picking the right tea for the moment, a small ritual that grounds me in being home.
The cups matter.
I’ve picked each one with care. The color matters. So does the weight. And especially the width of the rim. I run my finger along the edge before I buy it, making sure it’s smooth. I slip my hand through the loop to see if it fits comfortably or if my knuckles will press awkwardly against the ceramic. I lift it with two hands and imagine a cold day, testing whether I can wrap my palms around it completely and let the heat sink in. Some cups are meant to be held by the handle. Others are meant to be cupped.
After choosing an afternoon black tea with strawberries and cream, I open the cupboard to retrieve a beloved cup.
I stop short.
Every single cup is upside down.
Not stacked. Not casually rearranged. Inverted.
Wine glasses. Water glasses. My wide-rimmed favorites.
All of them flipped.
“Tanya, what did you do with the cups?” I call out to the living room, hoping she will hear me.
My mother-in-law, Tanya, is in the middle of a seven-week visit. This is the math of living far apart. The flights are long, so the visits are long too.
“What do you mean?” she says, as if she hasn’t done anything at all.
“Why are they all upside down?”
“Oh! You had them all wrong. I turned them so the demons won’t come.”
“The demons?”
“Yes. If the mouths face up, they come live in your house.”
I pause, trying to find the right answer.
“Tanya,” I say gently, “I don’t know much about demons. But I do know about mildew. We’re turning them back.”
I spend more time than I would like to admit turning each one right side up, which would say something about how many cups I own if anyone were counting. The next morning, I open the cupboard and see the brims up, neat and obedient, just the way I left them.
By afternoon, one has shifted.
I notice it because my eyes go automatically to the one that looks different.
I turn it back.
The following day, there are two.
Then one again.
It is never dramatic. No announcement. Just a small, steady correction happening in opposite directions.
She turns them over. And then I turn them back.
It becomes less about demons or mildew and more about territory. About whose small habits get to live here. My theory is that she is trying to sneak in as many inverted cups as possible without someone noticing.
Too bad I spend so much time reaching in for cups, and have too much stubbornness to let it go for the remainder of her stay.