The Last One!

Early last month tragedy struck in the bookstore. I dropped my beloved tea mug while I was standing at the top of the stairs leading from the Rare Book Room. It didn't fall all the way down the stairs, but it fell hard enough and far enough to break off the handle. I was crushed.

Let me explain, this isn't just any mug. It's a mug I received from Knopf in 2007 to promote their title, Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Anyone who knows me knows that's a quote I can get behind. It was also an excellent book of women's history by a Pulitzer Prize winning historian whose work is well known nationally and beloved in Utah. Less well known is that Laurel Thatcher Ulrich coined the phrase "Well behaved women seldom make history." For years the mug was my constant meeting companion, it held my hot tea winter mornings, iced tea in summer, and it even held a shot of whiskey a time or two after particularly difficult days. It was permanently tea stained and frequently lipstick stained. It was the perfect mug for me.

When Ron Smith, my Random House sales representative for Knopf called on me last, I showed him my sad mug. I wanted him to see how much I had appreciated and enjoyed it over the years. I also couldn't bear to throw it away and was about to make it my new pen holder. Ron shook his head and said something to the effect that Random House doesn't really do things like that anymore. I understood, no one in the book business has the money for that kind of promotion these days. I wasn't asking for another mug, just sharing the love. Ron said he might have a couple left in his garage. He'd check. That was weeks ago.

This morning I opened a mysterious package. In it was a bubble wrapped object with a note that said, "The last one!" It was a new mug and it's made my day. Over and over again I am reminded of the generosity and love possessed by people in the book business. They freely donate books to schools, they give their personal time to community projects, they give their own scarce money to other bookstores that have suffered fires, floods, earthquakes, catastrophes of all kinds. They send tea mugs to booksellers made ridiculously happy by little things.