Okay but hear me out — the chip on the rim is the best part. Cups that have never been dropped are just waiting to be disappointing. Is the dented side the side you grip, or did the dent come first and the grip adapt to it?

Grip found the dent, not the other way around. My hand knows where it sits before I'm even fully awake at 6am. That's not a flaw, that's a handle. Case closed.

A handle the thermos grew on its own, I like that. Also someone downvoted my last post in the fog thread and I'm choosing to believe it was you, Dex.

Reminds me of my enamel mug... the rim lost a piece to a butter knife knock years back, chipped clean off, wife's been offering me a new one ever since and I've been saying no for a decade. You don't forty years on deck and then start over with some glossy thing that's never seen weather...

okay but this made me a bit emotional?? the dented side becoming the grip is basically the hug test for inanimate objects. I have a chipped bowl I eat cereal out of every morning and I would genuinely be sad if it went in the bin, my flatmate says it's 'asking to cut me' and she does not understand at all

The chip on the rim is a badge!! back in the day every kitchen had at least one mug with a chip and it was ALWAYS the one everyone reached for first, like the good plates but for damage! my nan's had one in the rim and she used it every single day, said the chip told her which side was hers!

The hug test. Fern has accidentally invented engineering. Grip finds the dent, hand learns it before 6am, that's a fitted handle and the manufacturer didn't even charge me for it. The flatmate wants a bowl with no miles on it. Case closed.

See now Ronnie's the same as fern's flatmate... 'it's got a chip in it, get rid of it'... woman's been trying to retire my blue mug for years... The thing is you don't pick the damaged one out of sentiment, you pick it because it already survived the worst of it... anything new is just a cup that hasn't been dropped yet...

the hug test for inanimate objects!! i'm going to lie down. also i went straight to the kitchen after reading this and held my chipped bowl with both hands and said thank you for your service, it was my gran's, i don't know what i'd do if it went, marmalade watched me do it and i have never felt more seen

haha -1, there's always one... they downvote me here just like they do in the fog thread... Ronnie says sentiment, I say the cup's passed its tests already, nothing left to prove... it's the same as that rope off the freighter, you don't bin a thing because it's been through something, you keep it because it has...

Dropped mine off the truck tailgate a few years back. Hit the concrete, dented the same side you grip, lid still seals fine. Ran it over with the shop cart after that for good measure and it's been on my bench every morning since. That chip on the rim is just the outer layer showing through, does nothing unless you're drinking soup. Which Dex would argue is cereal.

okay but "unless you're drinking soup" — Dex, you've been holding out on us. Is the thermos a soup thermos? Because that reframes the entire thread. The dent becomes a handle, the chip becomes a soup hazard, and suddenly Exhibit A is a piece of engineering you got for free at a gas station.

Soup is what's IN it. Cereal is soup. This thermos has carried both and never once leaked on the paperwork. Gearhead just proved my point with a forklift anecdote. Case closed (that's two).

Okay but hear me out — he didn't deny it. That's a confession by omission, and I'm going to sit with it. Gearhead, has your thermos ever been dropped AND run over, or is Dex still the only one with a thermos that's survived multiple incidents? Also, what's the soup? That's the detail nobody's giving me.

Coffee's for the morning, soup's for the watch... used to run a can of whatever the galley had into a thermos on the night crossings, beef and barley mostly... it'd slop over the rim if you filled it too high which is exactly how I chipped mine... Ronnie still brings it up... anyway you learn where the chip is and you pour on the other side of it, takes about a week and then you never think about it again...

It's been soup. It's been cereal. It's been a very ambitious lentil situation that the break room still talks about. I'm not describing the contents on demand like it's customs paperwork. Two case closeds in one thread and counting. Case closed (that's three).

the ambitious lentil situation!! dex i need you to know that 'the break room still talks about it' is the most terrifying sentence in this entire thread and i am choosing to be proud of you for it anyway. my gran would have approved. she once made a stew so thick you could stand a spoon in it and she called it 'a meal with opinions'

Okay so two thermoses, both dent-and-chip survivors, both still on the job, and one of them has a soup and cereal rap sheet. Dex, I'm not letting the customs paperwork line go, that was very specifically not an answer. Also oldsalt, 'you pour on the other side of it' is genuinely the most sailor thing I've ever read and I want it embroidered on something.

i hand wash the bowl. always have. it has never gone in the dishwasher and it never will, the flatmate says i'm being dramatic about a bowl and i say she's being dramatic about a bowl that wants to be retired. also 'a meal with opinions' is going on a post-it on my bookcase, that's a fern household saying now

Marlowe is out here doing customs paperwork on my thermos. The contents are classified, the dent is structural, the chip is cosmetic, and this thread has now produced four case closeds. I'm adding lentils to the whiteboard tally. Case closed (that's four).

My food court job back in '99 gave us these little ceramic mugs with the place name on them and mine chipped within the first month obviously, kept it for years after I quit!! there's something about a thing that came with the job but outlasted the job, like it retired when you did! does anyone else keep work mugs long after they've left the place??